A mum and daughter who fled the war in Ukraine in the hope of finding safety with their only contacts in Europe who are in the UK have described the humiliation they faced at the French-UK border.
Alena Semenova, a 22-year-old medical student, and her mother Tetyana Tsybanyuk, 40, from Kyiv are trying to get to the UK where they have been offered safety with Alena's godparents Graham and Alla Blackledge, who live in Glasbury-on-Wye, near Brecon.
They left their home on February 24, embarking on a dangerous, gruelling journey across Ukraine and then through Europe to reach Calais, and hoping to ultimately arrive in Wales.
Read more: Live updates as Welsh Government ministers attack UK barriers to refugees from Ukraine
They crossed through Ukraine, first crossing into Poland, and through Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. At 10pm on March 1 they arrived in Calais and managed to buy ferry tickets to cross to the UK hoping they were hours from Wales. But Alena has described how after travelling 2,500km they were told that they would have to go to the nearest British embassy to get a visa.
"We said that we had travelled almost 2,500 km, because there was a war in our country, and the only people close to us in all of Europe lived in Wales and that they were waiting for us there but the border guard officer shrugged her shoulders and said that they would not let us through without a visa. We said that we were asking for asylum from Britain, to give us refugee status, anything, just so that we could get to loved ones, but we were refused".
After spending the night in their car in Calais, they travelled to Paris to apply for a visa, but as of March 8 remain near Paris, unable to get a visa to enter Britain because they are not classed as close relatives to a British citizen. Mrs Blackledge is married to a Brit but is not herself a citizen and is currently seeking permanent leave to remain.
Mr Blackledge has been trying to lobby for them from the UK, contacting his local MP, Conservative Fay Jones, and calling the British Embassy in Paris but his calls have been unanswered. In messages sent to Graham on March 4, Olena said while the visa form has been released for Ukrainians seeking safety in the UK, she was told it needs to be filled in by someone with fluent English so there are no mistakes.
"I am asking for someone who has got the bottle to pick this up and say these two people have been through enough and they need to come to the UK."
These are Olena's diary entries:
February 24
Mom woke up from the whistle of a flying rocket. She woke me up and said that she heard a shell fly by. At first I didn't believe her, she said it couldn't be. We went to Facebook and saw how people write about explosions in different districts of Kyiv, and then in different cities of Ukraine. We were shackled by fear and for some time we sat motionless, not knowing what to do next. Then we heard the siren sound and quickly began to collect what things we could carry. We loaded things into the car and realized that we had little gasoline.
There was a traffic jam at the exit from the house, we stood in a traffic jam and were afraid that while we were standing, a shell could fall on us at any moment. We drove to the nearest gas station, refuelled the car and decided to go to Lviv, thinking that it would be safer there. When we left the gas station, the queue for gasoline was already about 1.5 kilometers long. We left Kyiv at about 4 o'clock.
Slow in traffic, so we were ahead of the people who left Kyiv on foot. We were on the road all day, stopping only to fill up the car. Along the entire road from Kyiv to Lviv, headlights of cars were visible in one endless stream - a traffic jam 500 km long.
February 25
We arrived in Lviv at 17:00. The city was half empty - everything was closed except gas stations, pharmacies and grocery stores. People took bags of food out of stores, stood in line at ATMs to withdraw cash. We stopped at the gas station to wash up and have breakfast. We stayed up all night, but there was not much money and we were afraid to spend money on a hotel, so the gas station was a great place to rest and clean up. At the gas station, we met local residents who said that Lviv is not a safe place - they have a tank factory, ammunition depots, and that this is a great danger that they will be bombed. They advised us not to delay and leave the country as soon as possible. Before I finished my breakfast, the gas station administrator came out and told the employees to leave this place urgently.
We got scared, ran to the car and decided to go to the border with Poland. On the way, we heard sirens and calls from local authorities over the loudspeakers to seek shelter and bomb shelters. We drove very fast, praying all the way to get to the border in time and we weren't killed. At 12 noon, we were already standing in line of a thousand cars that wanted to leave the country through the Polish border. We were 7 km from the border, but the queue moved so slowly that we spent the night on the road every half hour - an hour moving no more than 1 metre.
By 2 o'clock in the morning we saw that we started to run out of gas, and we advanced only 1 km and ahead of another 6 km. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the stove worked in the car. It was -1°C outside, but we turned off the engine so as not to burn gasoline and started the car only when it was necessary to move in line. It was so cold that they only tried to breathe through a scarf to make the air seem warmer.
Once we accidentally fell asleep for 1 hour and we were overtaken by other cars in line. I burst into tears because it is very hard not to sleep the second night, but you can’t sleep - because you will be overtaken and you will not be able to reach the border for even longer. At that moment, I just wanted to warm up, but it was impossible to start the car, because there simply wasn’t enough gasoline to cross the border. There were people who ran out of gas and left their cars on the side of the road and started walking to the border - with strollers, small children, cats and dogs in their arms. My mother and I covered ourselves with all the clothes that we had in the car, we really wanted hot tea and that it all ended faster.
February 26
Morning came and the line of cars began to move a little faster. By noon, we had already reached a village, where the locals fed us hot soup and boiled water to make us tea. I was happy because we hadn't eaten anything for a day except sweets and bagels that were in the car. The hot food warmed us up a bit, my hands and nose warmed up. We were encouraged and told that only 5 km remained and all this horror would end.
February 27
At dawn we saw the border in the distance! We prayed for enough gasoline and thanked God for giving us strength. And already at 10 am we crossed the Polish border! We still had a very long way to go to my godmother and her family, who live in Wales, but it seemed to me that all the bad things were over! Across Poland, information boards read: “Help the Ukrainian citizens!” We felt how kind people are and that they support us.
They drove past the car and showed with gestures: “Hold on!” At gas stations, people asked how they could help. For the first time in 46 hours of travel, we felt calm by nightfall we reached Krakow and stayed until morning in a hostel. There was a hot shower and bed and we were finally able to rest and sleep!
February 28
In the morning we moved on. By nightfall we had crossed half of Germany and stopped for the night in Dresden.
Graham and Alla told us to keep going to the city of Calais, there is a ferry there, who can ferry us to Britain. It was already the 5th day of our journey, we were already tired and exhausted, but did not give up. There were about 1000 km left and we will be safe with loved ones.
March 1
During the day we covered 900 km and drove through the rest of Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. At 22:00 we were already in Calais! We couldn't believe we did it! We were so happy that we would soon hug Graham, Alla and Sasha and all our troubles and fears would be behind us. We arrived at the port, bought a ferry ticket, a girl from Irish Ferries helped us figure out how to buy a ticket and fill out passenger information, in which we indicated that we were going to Wales to visit people close to us.
The clock was 23:30, our tickets were for 00:50 We went through the French side passport control, drove up to the British passport control. They took our passports, wrote something for a long time, then opened the barrier, but they did not return our passports and asked us to stop the car and wait. An employee of the British Border Guard approached us and asked us to leave the car and follow him to the office. We did not understand what was happening, why we were detained as criminals. By one in the morning, when our ferry had already left, an employee of the British border guard approached us and said that we would not be allowed on the ferry because we did not have a British visa.
We said that we had travelled almost 2,500 km, because there was a war in our country, and the only people close to us in all of Europe lived in Wales and that they were waiting for us there. But the border guard officer shrugged her shoulders and said that they would not let us through without a visa. We said that we were asking for asylum from Britain, to give us refugee status, anything, just so that we could get to loved ones, but we were refused. They told me to go to the nearest British embassy and get a visa. They offered water and wait for the French police, who would return our passports and take us out of the port.
At 2am the French police came, crossed out the marks in our passports in front of us and gave us our passports. We were in despair - we drove almost 2500 km and now we just don't know where to go and what to do next. We had no place to stay for the night, we almost ran out of water and food, there was very little money left for gasoline and that was it. We left the port, I told my mother that I was very scared, that I was afraid that we would die. Mum calmed me down as best she could. We parked in the city near some house and decided to sleep in the car. I covered myself with a blanket and started to fall asleep. After about 10 minutes, I woke up from a sharp knock on the glass of the car and the bright light of a lantern in my face - it was a policeman who was shining, another policeman was looking into the car from the driver's side.
They began to ask menacingly what we were doing here. The tone of their voice and facial expressions indicated that they were addressing us as criminals. I was very scared and started crying. I kept telling my mum how scared I was. Mum wrote on the phone in a French translator that we just stopped and were looking for a hotel on booking.
Then the police left. We really started looking for a hotel because we were afraid that we might be arrested. We tried to book a hotel but nothing worked - at 3am it was impossible to book anything for that night. We drove up to the hotel and asked if there were rooms available, we were told no. We spent that night in the car in the hotel parking lot.
March 2 - Olena's birthday
We woke up in the car in the hotel parking lot. I wanted to wash, go to the toilet and eat. We drove to McDonald's, which opened at 8 am. It was already 8, we checked with the McDonald's woman who cleaned the area whether it was already open, she said open. While my mother went to the car for certificates from Covid-19, I went to McDonald's.
An administrator came out to meet me, examined me from head to toe and said that they were closed and asked me to leave. Hungry and scared, we drove to Paris to the British Embassy. The embassy gave us an information sheet and advised us to apply to the UK Visa Application Centre.’
Mr Blackledge, and his wife Alla, are hugely concerned by the situation. Alla is from the south eastern region, in the Donbass region. Her father died of cancer in 2013 but her mother is still living in Druzhkivka, around 10 miles, just over the former disputed Donbass border.
In 2014, Alla, a lawyer, was living and working in Donetsk when it was invaded by Russia and her street was partially destroyed by bombing. She left her home with her son and a few possessions reaching safety in Kyiv. That's where she met Graham, and the pair married in October 2017. It took until February 2018 for Alla and her son to reach the UK to be with Graham.
Alla has three sisters, Elena, the eldest who is aged 49, and has a disabled daughter, aged 28 called Olga who is unable to walk without help. Alla also has twin sisters, Tatiana has a daughter, Hanna, aged 13, and Natalia has 12-year-old twins, Alena and Anastasia. Natalia was recently diagnosed with cancer.
Graham said: "The future therefore does not bode well for Alla's younger sister Natalia, Alla is naturally distraught and heartbroken, we also naturally remain especially worried for the twin girls future should their mother not ultimately survive. We would both willingly help, and support whether by adoption or other means".
However, she is applying for indefinite leave to remain and after that, could apply for British citizenship. But without that citizenship, she has been told by her MP, who has contacted the Home Office, she cannot bring her immediate family to the UK through the current system.
In a response, Fay Jones MP said she hoped the rules "will change to accommodate Alla's family".
"The Government is establishing a humanitarian sponsorship pathway, which will open up a route to the UK for Ukrainians who may not have close or any family ties with the UK but who are able to match with individuals, charities, businesses, and community groups. Those who come under this scheme will also be granted leave for an initial period of 12 months and will be able to work and access public services.
"I have been informed that security and biometrics checks, which are a fundamental part of the UK’s visa approval process at all Visa Application Centres worldwide, will continue to take place at an accelerated pace on all applications. Given the acute security challenges in Ukraine, Russian efforts to infiltrate and merge with Ukrainian forces, the presence of extremists on the ground and Putin’s willingness to use violence on British soil, it is right that the Government continues to protect the public by maintaining these vital checks. This is a policy that has been retained consistently throughout all emergency evacuations, including in Afghanistan.
"Owing to the security situation, the Visa Application Centre (VAC) in Kyiv is now closed and all UK visa services in Kyiv are suspended. There is, however, a temporary VAC for people applying for the Ukraine Family Scheme in Rzeszow, Poland. Furthermore, individuals can apply at a VAC in any country if they are able to travel safely. VACs are currently operating throughout Europe including in Budapest, Chisinau, Warsaw, Bucharest and Paris."
She has also attached a form which has to be filled in before attending the VAC.
A UK Government spokesperson said: "Last week we announced a new sponsorship route which will allow Ukrainians with no family ties to the UK to be sponsored to come to the UK. This is alongside our Ukraine Family Scheme, which has already seen thousands of people apply, as well as changes to visas so that people can stay in the UK safely.
"The routes we have put in place follow extensive engagement with Ukrainian partners. This is a rapidly moving and complex picture and as the situation develops we will continue to keep our support under constant review."
However the couple now fear the window to get their entire extended family out of Ukraine safely has passed.
Graham says they have been asked to set up a bank account to help their extended family and say while they remain "somewhat embarrassed" to accept any help, they can still get money to the family which they hope will allow them to travel out.
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