A Ukraine war aid worker fears Britain is turning its back on refugee families as the conflict enters its 200th day on Monday.
Sally Becker revealed she faced a mountain of red tape on her latest mercy mission to bring orphans here.
The humanitarian campaigner, nicknamed the Angel of Mostar for her work helping hundreds escape the Bosnian War in the 1990s, said: “The Government seems to have changed its stance. There are enormous problems with bureaucracy.”
Sally, 59, says she managed to evacuate 164 refugees in May – but in the four months since she has gained entry to Britain for fewer than 60. Two families even chose to return to Ukraine due to delays and complications with obtaining visas.
The difficulties Sally has faced contrast an earlier mission in March - when she helped rescue 54 Ukrainian orphans and the government “did everything possible” to get them to Scotland.
She revealed: “The embassy delivered the visas to me by hand and Virgin Atlantic flew the children to Britain on an airbus they brought to Poland.
“But this time it was different. I brought the group of orphans to Poland and suddenly we were being told they had nowhere to go. I had to learn as I went along, encountering enormous problems with red tape.”
She was in Ukraine demonstrating her charity Save a Child’s app – which connects paediatric specialists with front-line doctors – when
she was asked to evacuate orphans from Dnipro. Her team spent three weeks getting paperwork.
Ukraine authorities then arranged trains to Lyiv for 65 children plus guardians. Sally said: “The journey took 22 hours, often in darkness to prevent the train being targeted by Russian forces.”
They were joined by other families from badly-hit cities such as Kherson and Kharkiv, and the group of 164 crossed the border on coaches into Poland. Once in a hotel there, Sally said the Home Office wanted “all kinds of documentation”. After 10 days they were moved from the hotel to an exhibition hall which was being used as a camp to house thousands of refugees.
Sally said: “Some children got Covid and some had salmonella. A grandmother with five orphans had cardiac problems and feared she may be taken to hospital and the children left alone. I was devastated to find out she had taken a bus back to Ukraine with them.”
On May 26, Sally was told refugee families would need to apply to individual sponsors through Homes for Ukraine – which she knew would be impossible for larger groups.
That call came four days after then PM Boris Johnson published a letter to Ukraine’s children, telling them “we in the UK will never forget you”.
Sally, of Sussex, said: “We had more than 100 who couldn’t come because the Government were refusing visas.” Trustees at a closed boarding school in Bruton, Somerset, offered accommodation. Then the Steve Morgan Foundation for children and families found a hotel on the Wirral and offered to fund board and food for six months. But both options were dismissed by the Government, said Sally, who found an alternative.
In June, she applied for visas through the Welsh Super Sponsor Scheme which accepted larger groups but just as her volunteers began submitting applications on June 9, the scheme was suspended.
Six weeks later visas began to be approved. Groups have since begun to arrive with travel costs paid for by the Steve Morgan Foundation. A Government spokesman said:
“In many cases protecting vulnerable groups, including children, will mean it is more appropriate for them to remain near Ukraine where there is national care systems support and United Nations assistance.”
More than 122,900 Ukrainians have arrived here in visa schemes.
In Sally’s case, the Home Office said it was not satisfied that appropriate long-term accommodation and support had been secured for the group.
A spokesperson said: "Some of the children’s applications were rejected by the Home Office on the grounds they were ‘unaccompanied’ and the children received emails informing them that they would need to apply through the Unaccompanied Children's Programme. A Pastor with 7 orphaned children returned to Ukraine after being told that the children would have to apply through the programme which would have meant splitting them up. The children were travelling with their legal guardians and some were actually with their biological mothers so it just didn't make any sense.”
Support Sally’s work at saveachild.uk
