Yonas ran his fastest marathon with a time of 2 hours 17 minutes.

[1] Yonas speaks French, English, Luxembourgish, and Amharic; he works as a massage therapist.

During his relatively short running career in Europe, coached by Yves Göldi, he won several titles in Luxembourg, France and Germany.

Due to his refugee status, Yonas could not compete at international competitions, despite being fast enough to have qualified.

[citation needed] On 3 July 2016, the IOC announced that Yonas would be part of a team of ten athletes selected to compete as a Refugee Olympic Athletes team at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.