‘I never met my son – now he’s stranded in a warzone’: The family hit by visa delays

A Sudanese refugee who has never met his own son is among more than 11,000 people separated from their families because of Home Office visa delays.

Ummar* applied for his wife and son to be brought to safety in the UK under the family reunion scheme last September, but they remain trapped in Sudan amid a conflict that has already killed his nephew.

“When I fled, my wife was three months pregnant,” he told The Independent. “There was no time to say goodbye to my family, I didn’t have a chance to meet my son.

“We’ve been waiting 11 months [for visas] and my wife and son are not safe, they are still inside Sudan.”

Ummar said his 21-year-old nephew – a promising football player who was beloved by the family, and close to Ummar’s young son – was killed in April, on the second day of the war, when a stray rocket struck his home in Khartoum, near where his wife and son were also living.

They have now fled to the eastern part of the country, but fighting continues to rage between warring factions of Sudan’s military government and the resulting humanitarian crisis is worsening.

Countless people with links to the UK were stranded in Sudan following the end of a restricted evacuation in May, and the government has refused to set up a route for people displaced by fighting, meaning Sudanese refugees who resort to small boats could be threatened with deportation to Rwanda.

Ummar said he left the country as a political dissident in 2016, when he was facing arrest by the authoritarian regime, and travelled through several countries before taking a small boat to the UK in July 2020.

His asylum claim was not granted until September 2022, when he became eligible for family reunion and applied immediately, organising for his wife and son to send biometric information to the Home Office.

Ummar’s son is now six. He struggled to speak when asked about never having met him, saying: “It’s hard, having him grow up away from me and never having a chance to hold him.”

Under the British government’s rules, the 48-year-old can only apply for his wife and son to join him in the UK, and other relatives will remain stranded.

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Family reunion is one of the few “safe and legal routes” that Suella Braverman claims asylum seekers should use instead of small boats, as the government pushes through laws that aim to see all Channel migrants detained and deported without their claims being heard.

But figures obtained by The Independent show that the majority of the 11,189 outstanding family reunion cases are more than six months old, and almost 1,800 have been pending for over a year.

More than 7,000 of the applications relate to women and girls, and 5,700 to children, with the top countries including Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and Yemen.

Ummar’s case is among 910 outstanding applications for Sudanese refugees, despite the outbreak of conflict in the country in April.

Steve Smith, chief executive of charity Care4Calais, said: “Refugees like Ummar are forced to make the heartbreaking decision to leave their lives behind as they flee war, conflict, persecution and human rights abuses.

“All they hope for is a peaceful and safe future, reunited with their families. It is shocking that, even after their asylum claims are granted, the UK government is failing to process their family reunification applications in a timely manner.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “All family reunion applications are carefully considered on their individual merits and in accordance with the Immigration Rules. We do not routinely comment on individual cases.”

*Name changed to protect anonymity