Legless Cuban survivor finally reaches U.S. (after 15 years)

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/18281.html

Legless Cuban survivor finally reaches U.S.
By Wilfredo Cancio Isla | El Nuevo Herald

* Posted on Sun, July 22, 2007

MIAMI — He had managed to crawl through the third barrier between Cuban territory and the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo when the warning flares lit the night sky.

Amado Veloso Vega thought he'd stay there till dawn, confident the Cuban guards could not enter the mine-laden strip dubbed "no-man's land." But then he heard shots, and when he tried to move, a mine exploded, destroying his legs and flinging him 15 feet.

With no strength to shout, Veloso lay there until he heard the soldiers approach.

It was the beginning of a 15-year odyssey to get to the United States that ended last week. Veloso, 36, arrived in Miami last Monday with a U.S. State Department humanitarian visa.

Veloso is headed for Louisville, Ky., where the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which sponsored him, has found him a home.

"I'm still pinching myself, because I can't believe it. I'm in Miami!" he said last week at his Miami hotel. "I want to laugh because I believe I suffered enough. In Cuba, I was a walking dead man."

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