‘Ruthless’: The Ukrainian refugees turned away from UK visa centres across Europe

When Andrei Toloshko heard that the UK had launched a family migration route for Ukrainian refugees last week, he thought he, with his wife and young son would be able to join his London-based brother in the UK within days.

The family had fled from their home in Kyiv on 25 February after hearing bombs in the middle of the night. After a 48 drive they crossed the border to Moldova. Without relatives there, they hoped not to be there for long.

But when Mr Toloshko tried to book an appointment to submit their application under the UK visa scheme, he was told there were “no available appointments for this month, for next month, May, or June”.

The 37-year-old, who worked as the director at commercial property consulting company in Kyiv, went to the visa centre in Chsenau – the only centre in Moldova – on Monday morning. There were already dozens of Ukrainians waiting there, and only two members of staff were there to assist them. He was told to return at 2pm. When they did so there were even more people and they could not get an appointment.

The family returned to the centre on Tuesday in the hope of getting an appointment – only to find that it was shut for a public holiday.

“I’m shocked,” Mr Toloshko told The Independent after returning from the close centre. “The Home Office said they would try to make it faster, but it’s no different to normal. They are obviously completely unprepared for this situation.

“They should make sure their commercial partner working in these centres understands this urgent situation. They should create another queue for Ukrainians, put more staff on the ground – just for one week or two weeks – or start collecting documents at the embassy.”

The home secretary announced a family migration route for Ukrainian refugees last week, under which she said tens of thousands of close relatives of British nationals and people settled in the UK would be eligible to come to the UK. The scheme was opened on Friday.

The Independent has set up a petition calling on the UK government to be at the forefront of the international community offering aid and support to those in Ukraine. To sign the petition click here.

In order to submit an application, refugees are required to attend a UK visa centre, which are run by the Home Office’s commercial partner TLScontact. There are only one or two of these centres in most EU countries, meaning many refugees must travel for several hours to attend one.

There are also issues with capacity, with UK-based family members and immigration lawyers reporting that they have been unable to find a free appointment slot on the website.

Home Office figures show only 760 visas have been granted so far under the family route, despite tens of thousands of applications having been submitted.

The Home Office has placed 35 additional Home Office staff in visa centres across Europe. There are believed to be 57 centres across the continent.

Chris Allsford, 50, from southwest England, is currently in Warsaw, Poland, where he drove from the UK to meet his Ukrainian wife Svitlana, 44, on Sunday evening after she fled from eastern Ukraine, described “poor organisation” in the UK visa system.

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“They’ve set up a visa centre in a hotel. There are around 300 people there every morning. You’re told to go away and make an application online, but you’ve got people here who don’t speak any English and are probably not accustomed to using the internet,” he said.

“They say if you don’t have an appointment come back at 6pm. At 5pm there’s a huge queue, then they shut the door at 5.45. I asked why a staff member why they told everyone to come back at 6pm, and she just said I thought we could do more but we’re tired.

“You don’t want to argue with them, but you’re looking around at people who have fled a warzone and are exhausted. In the whole queue there are probably three men – the rest are women and children.”

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Mr Allsford told of one case of a woman with three young children who arrived yesterday with an appointment, but was told to leave because she needed to make a separate application for her and each of her children.

“There’s a real lack of information. It would help if they had more staff to give people information. At the moment you literally push your way through the crowd to the door, and then they tell you to go away, book an appointment and print a checklist. It’s a mad push to the front; there’s no control at all. Everybody is worried and afraid.”

In another case, Uliana, whose sister-in-law is currently in Bergamo, Italy, with her two young children – Uliana’s brother stayed in Ukraine to defend the country – and her mother, trying to submit a visa application, said the family was “driven onto the streets” after trying to get an appointment on Tuesday.

The family, who are staying in a monastery, travelled for an hour and 20 minutes by car – which they rented out for €150 – to reach the nearest visa centre in Milan on Monday, only to be told that they had filled out the forms incorrectly as each individual had to have their own form.

Uliana, who didn’t want to use her full name, said were told that there were no appointments available for the rest of the month, but that they could come back early the following day and the staff would try to fit them in.

The family did so – again paying €150 for a rental car – only to be told they could not be seen again.

“They arrived there so early, woke up a small child. By 8am they were already there, waiting for them when they open there at 8:30, but when they went in the same man who told them to come back did not want to accept them,” said Uliana.

“[The staff] are so ruthless. They drove them out into the street, and they told them to leave. They didn’t look at those poor little children. They all cried and begged them, saying they had already travelled twice, in a rented a car, from such a long way.”

A government spokesperson said: “We are working to process applications as quickly as possible and submitting an application in English reduces delays, which means we can get people here more efficiently.

“However, if someone is unable to provide translated documents they should still submit their application with untranslated documents. Support is available to applicants through our free 24/7 helpline and in visa application centres.”

The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page.