Cuban doctors fleeing Venezuela find themselves in limbo

[Zorro]

Working in Venezuela, a country where they often had to wait in line for hours to buy food, even small gestures were welcome. So Félix Pérez, his daughter and two colleagues — all Cuban health workers sent there as part of the island’s foreign-aid program — jumped at the chance when they were invited to a neighbor’s house for lunch.

Later that day, however, their supervisors accused them of breaking bread with a member of Venezuela’s opposition.

“They took away our cellphones and our passports — they essentially took everything so we wouldn’t be able to communicate,” recalls Pérez, a 50-year-old rehabilitation specialist. “We knew they were going to end our mission and send us back to Cuba, so we decided to flee to Colombia.”

In this thriving capital, they were expecting quick and safe passage to the United States under the 2006 Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, tailor-made for the island’s health workers. But six months later, Pérez and his daughter are still waiting for a response from the U.S. Embassy. Their money has run out and they spend their days playing cards in a cramped home with other Cubans caught in limbo.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article31327064.html

[Marksman_91]

1. It's gotten to the point now that Venezuela is actually worse off than Cuba in certain aspects

I've met many Cubans who moved to south Florida only some years ago, and they themselves tell me that at least back home that violent crime is well-controlled, and that they personally know other Cubans who went to Venezuela and decided to come back simply because of how unsafe and hard to live in it was. It's a shame to see a nation with so much potential be turned into a failed state thanks to the governance of a bunch of incompetent military radicals.