A Ukrainian girl’s dreams of starting a new life in the UK with her aunt and cousin were destroyed, forcing her to return to her war-torn hometown.
After her parents, who are both in the Ukrainian Army, obtained legal documents authorizing her aunt to represent her, Alisa Miroshyna, 11, spent over three months in Poland waiting for a visa.
But her 35-year-old mother Kateryna has given up on her receiving a visa to the UK and has brought her back to their house in Dnipro, which is in an area of eastern Ukraine under threat from Russian soldiers.
The couple who had welcomed her to stay at their home in Hartlepool, County Durham, have called the refusal to issue her a visa “sickening and illegal.”
Under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme, Nick Anderson, 60, and his companion Karen Jones, 54, offered Alisa, her aunt Viktoria Sochka, 39, and cousin Anasatasiia, 14, one of their spare rooms.
He asserted that he and Jill Mortimer’s Hartlepool MP staff wasted “many hundreds of hours” in unsuccessful attempts to secure visas for the three of them.
Despite official documents proving that her aunt held Power of Attorney over her, UK state employees consistently refused to recognize Viktoria as her legal guardian.
The British Government’s decision to send this 11-year-old child back to a war zone where her life may be in danger is ridiculous, according to Nick, a semi-retired financial advisor.
Anyone who watches the news and sees what the Russians are doing to women and children in the Ukraine should be appalled at the horrific way in which a family is being treated. Actually, it’s like Schindler’s List in reverse!
It is ironic that Ukrainian refugees who are admitted to the UK are permitted to bring their dogs and other pets with them.
It is absurd that she wouldn’t be prohibited from entering if she had been a dog, but she is not permitted to enter as an 11-year-old who is escorted by her aunt.
Since the refugee family lives alone in their detached six-bedroom home, Nick and caretaker Karen, who together have eight adult children, agreed to assist them.
A train worker named Viktoria who was looking for housing in the UK with her daughter and niece was got in touch with the couple after they posted online that they had three extra rooms available.
Nick was informed that Viktoria’s 43-year-old spouse Andrii was serving in the Ukrainian Army and had returned to the front lines following his February injury.
In addition, Viktoria said that she was forced to take care of her niece so that Oleksii, 41, and her sister and brother-in-law could enlist in the military.
On March 20, Nick claimed to have spent many hours applying for the visas online. Angered by the delays, he then enlisted the aid of his MP Jill Mortimer.
He was given the assurance that a choice on whether to award visas will be made by April 4 thanks to her staff’s efforts.
In order to catch a flight to the UK on April 6, Viktoria and the two girls left their house in Dnipro and traveled 26 hours by train to Warsaw.
Despite already possessing a copy of her passport, UK civil officers at the last minute questioned the spelling of Anastasiia’s name and demanded to examine it.
Even though they had been informed that the adolescent was originally from the Donbas region, where spellings fluctuate, they insisted that it was not how the name was typically spelled in Ukraine.
The problem prevented the three of them from obtaining visas and allowing them to board their flight to Doncaster Sheffield airport.
As they waited fruitlessly for their visas to be processed, they wound up sharing a single room at a hostel in Warsaw with another Ukrainian woman and her daughter.
In a further twist, Nick revealed that civil employees subsequently demanded more evidence that Viktoria truly was Alisa’s aunt and qualified to travel to the UK with her.
Despite receiving a copy of the Lasting Power of Attorney issued by Ukrainian authorities allowing Viktoria the authority to care for her niece, according to Nick, officials still posed the question.
In a question to Priti Patel in Parliament on Monday, Ms. Mortimer brought up Alisa’s situation and pleaded with the Home Secretary to look for a way to allow her entry to the country.
However, Alisa’s mother Kateryna decided she could no longer wait and left on a train from Warsaw on Tuesday to find her and return her to Dnipro.
Things reached a boiling point since they had been dragged out for so long, according to Nick. They were concerned that they would run out of time because their visas only allow them to stay in Poland for 90 days.
Alisa would never be able to obtain a visa, therefore Kateryna made the decision to return her to Dnipro.
She hopes that by removing the obstacle of Alisa’s visa, Viktoria and Anastasiia will have a better chance of traveling to the UK.
Even that, however, is more complicated than it first appears because we must wait for Alisa’s application to be separated from their application.
“Viktoria claims that the entire event has left her broken.” They are a close-knit family, so she feels terrible that she won’t be able to bring Alisa over here to support her sister.
They had been living together in a dorm room for almost three months before they had to say goodbye to Alisa.
On Thursday afternoon, Nick claimed to have received a formal communication from the UK government stating that Alisa’s visa request had been denied.
She was cited in the email as being under 18 and “not accompanied by your parent/legal guardian” as the basis for the rejection.
It asked her to submit an application for the new program, set to launch in July and allowing unaccompanied Ukrainian children to join the UK.
After 40 minutes, Nick claimed he got another email letting him know Alisa’s application was still being considered.
The entire procedure is just shambolic, he continued. The length of time that things have taken to progress is absurd. It’s really awful.
Alison Shepherd, Jill Mortimer’s secretary, has worked on this issue for literally hundreds of hours.
“We have everything we need, and we’re looking into it,” was the only response she ever received despite spending hours on the phone every day.
“Jill Mortimer has even sent a member of her staff to the London office that has been handling visa applications, but that did not result in anything,” says the staff member.
The callous response she received from Ms. Patel speaks everything about her and her department, despite the fact that it was nice that she posed a question in Parliament to try and assist Alisa.
Although Nick claimed that social workers had deemed his home suitable for a refugee family, he was urged to obtain a Lasting Power of Attorney to demonstrate Viktoria’s role as Viktoria’s niece’s guardian.
Viktoria organized the official document from Ukrainian authorities, which he then posted as part of their application after passing along the advise to her.
When civilians are being killed by bombs every day, Nick said, “Our state workers appear to be purposefully blocking refugees.” It’s truly disgusting.
He previously admitted to feeling ashamed to be British in light of all this, especially considering how other nations are simply waving through refugees. How can we treat individuals in this manner?
It demonstrates the Home Office’s incompetence. The entire situation is a complete farce.
He continued, “After being appalled by what is occurring in Ukraine, we felt we had the space to support a family.
Karen and I acted swiftly to obtain all required DBS checks and have our home inspected by the local government to ensure everything was OK.
Anastasiia can speak a little English, but Victoria cannot, so we have been corresponding with her through Messenger.
Before escaping to Warsaw, Nick claimed that Viktoria and the two daughters had been living in fear in her apartment on the ninth floor of an apartment building in Dnipro.
It was terrible for them, he continued. When they heard bombardments, they frequently had to take cover in the hallway since they didn’t have enough time to get to a bomb shelter.
“While they waited to find out if they would receive visas, their lives were continuously in danger.”
The fact that they have a safe haven here is just so frustrating. The terrible thing is that they are refugees twice over because the Russians bombed out their initial home in 2015.
The Department of Levelling Up, which manages visa applications for the Home Office, was unable to provide any additional information about Alisa’s situation.