UK issues 300 visas under Ukraine Family Scheme after Home Office receives almost 9,000 applications

The UK Home Office has granted 300 visas after receiving thousands of applications for its Ukraine Family Scheme.

While the United Nations has estimated that more than 1.7 million Ukrainians have fled the war to neighbouring countries, the Home Office’s scheme is only open to people who have relatives in Britain.

Some 17,700 applications to date have been started by people desperate to leave Ukraine as Russia continues to inflict destruction and bloodshed after it launched its invasion more than a week ago.

Out of the 17,700 applications, 8,900 have been sent to the Home Office, the department announced, of which 4,300 appointments were made at visa application centres in countries including Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Czech Republic.

Out of 640 confirmed applications, just 300 visas were granted in the space of three days since the scheme opened on 4 March.

The Home Office insisted that it is making effort to ramp up the number of visas issued, and that the visas will allow refugees “the right to work and free access to healthcare, education and housing”.

It said: “We have surged staff and increased the number of appointments at our visa application centres in Rzeszow, Warsaw, Bucharest, Budapest, Chisinau and Prague to process visa applications as quickly as possible.”

Hundreds of Ukrainians have reached France and, for those with plans to travel to the UK, only 100 visa appointments have been reserved for the Paris application centre.

Those already at the ports in northern France would have to travel to Paris to give their fingerprints and other data, as they have been told that no visa appointments would be made in Calais.

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The UK currently only has two schemes for Ukrainian refugees, with the other scheme requiring an applicant to have a designated UK sponsor.

Home Secretary Priti Patel told The Sun she was examining the “legal options” to grant humanitarian access to people “without ties to the UK”.

But Boris Johnson did not confirm when asked on Monday whether a new route would be set up.

He said that refugees will be treated with a “very generous and open approach”, adding that it was “sensible” to “have some basic ability to check who is coming in and who isn’t”.

Foreign office minister James Cleverly said Ukrainian refugees preferred to stay in countries close to Ukraine, such as Poland where more than a million Ukrainians have sought refuge, and that the UK was providing humanitarian support to those countries.