A Home Office visa bungle has left a nine-year-old boy and his family cowering in a Ukraine air raid bunker instead of living safely in Scotland.
Andy and Marie Kuzbyt have been desperate to bring nephew Yuri to Scotland with 14-year-old sister Victoria, mum Natalia, an English teacher, and Andy’s elderly sister Sofia, 79.
They applied for visas in the middle of March and all were approved.
Victoria’s was delayed until Monday this week but Yuri’s appears to be lost in cyberspace and the family cannot move until he gets it.
Despite the UK supposedly establishing a fast-track to get people out of Ukraine, officials have said they cannot resend a duplicate visa for Yuri because one has already been issued.
The appalling red tape has meant the entire family is stuck in a bunker under their home near Lviv while Russian missiles land nearby.
Frantic Marie, from Kilmaurs, near Kilmarnock, contacted the Record after appeals to the Home Office and letters to Home Secretary Priti Patel, PM Boris Johnson and other influential politicians were ignored.
Marie, 60, said: “You could not make this up. We have four terrified family members cowering under a home in the middle of a brutal war, with missiles coming down close to their home.
"And they are stuck there because the Home Office refuses to resend an email.
“Natalia phoned me at 5am on the 25th of March in a state of terror and I could hear the kids screaming because there were missiles coming down close to them and they thought they would be killed.
"The screams will stay with me all my days but the Home Office doesn’t seem to think this is an urgent request.
“I have implored them to simply send the visa again but they say that once one is issued they can’t resend it. I’m guessing that the implication is that the visa might be used for another child to get out of Ukraine.
“That thinking just seems inhuman and obscene when you consider that they are fighting for their lives and we have a safe and secure home in Scotland that is ready for them today.”
Marie said she has received several messages from Victoria, repeatedly asking: “Can we come to Scotland yet?”
She said: “It’s heartbreaking telling her that she can’t because I’m waiting for the UK government to rubber stamp a visa.”
Andy spent his life in Scotland after his own father fled here during World War II to escape the Nazis.
He and Marie actively sought to reacquaint with his family in recent times and spent several trips in the Ukraine, getting to know close relatives and the area around Lviv.
Marie said: “We are desperate to do our bit and get them over here to safety as soon as possible. Natalia is frantic with worry and every day just heaps on more and more trauma for her and the children.
“Sophia has an appointment to get biometrics done for her passport at a visa centre in Rzeszow across the Polish border on Thursday but she has said there is no point in even getting it if Yuri does not have a visa.
“The crux of it is that if Yuri cannot travel to Scotland, none of them can and in the meantime they are sitting it out in a state of terror in a war zone. It is a living nightmare.”
She added: “What I cannot comprehend is how the Home Office does not have officials who can apply a bit of common sense and simply push a button to resend an email or reissue a visa – whatever the process is.”
Marie and Andy are on standby to travel to Poland to collect all four family members as soon as the Home Office reissues Yuri’s visa.
She said: “We hoped to be there now but we’re holding on until Yuri gets the visa and we’ll get there within a day or so to bring them back.”
Marie and Andy’s MP Alan Brown made approaches to the Home Office last week but he was told the visa was sent on March 21. An official said the matter would be “escalated” but nothing was done by the time Marie contacted the Record.
Brown slammed the Home Office. He said: “The process is an absolute disgrace and littered with flaws.”
A UK Government spokesman said: “We are moving as quickly as possible to ensure that those fleeing Ukraine can find safety in the UK.
"We continue to speed up visa processing across both schemes, with more than 22,000 issued under the Ukraine Family Scheme.”
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