A top sprinter from Sierra Leone, who vanished during last year's Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, has been living rough in London to avoid returning to his homeland.

Jimmy Thoronka was the country's top 100m runner, but he disappeared at the end of the event in Scotland last August.

The 20-year-old told The Guardian: "I was very excited to be coming to the Games in Glasgow. I saw it as my big chance. I wanted to go to London for a while after the Games but my bag with my money and passport in it was stolen at Glasgow station. I was scared to go to the police in case they arrested me and put me in a cell so I begged someone at the station to pay my fare to London and they agreed to do that.

"Some days I get no food at all. I wash in public toilets and sleep in the park. I wake up around 4am and if I've got a bus pass I get on the night bus and sleep there until morning. I met a man who sometimes lets me sleep at his house but I have to wait outside for him to come home at 10 or 11pm and I get very cold.

"My dream is to become one of the best sprinters in the world but I don't see how that can happen now. Maybe someone will see that I have potential and give me some sponsorship so that I can train here. I can't go back to Sierra Leone because my whole family has been wiped out and I can't make it alone. Nobody is doing athletics there now. Ebola has destroyed so much. But I can't survive here either if I continue living like this. I don't know what I am going to do."

Over 3,500 people have died in Sierra Leone because of the current Ebola crisis.