The case of six Ukrainian refugees stuck on the continent waiting for a visa to come to Britain has been raised by Norfolk’s Lord Dannatt, who is sponsoring two of the group.
Mothers and sons Larysa and Bohdan Bobor, Viktoriya Lomakovska and Mykita Lomakovskyi, and Olha Miroshnyk and Yan Dmytrykov all managed to escape from Ukraine into Poland in the week of March 23-29.
Four of the six are hoping to come to Norfolk, with Lord Dannatt, and his wife Lady Dannatt - the county’s lord-lieutenant - taking Larysa and Bohdan into their home in Keswick, south of Norwich.
The cohort were driven out of Poland on Friday morning by Little Melton man Adam Hale-Sutton in the Hethersett Primary School bus, arriving in France on Sunday night.
The group all have sponsors waiting to accommodate them in the UK but delays in having their visas processed has left them stuck in a holiday let in Dunkirk.
“We’re getting various reports of [visas taking] up to a month,” said Mr Hale-Sutton.
The group met Mr Hale-Sutton and Eastern Daily Press editor David Powles, while the pair were offering support on the Polish-Ukrainian border two weeks ago.
“They’d bonded with us in a way that they felt safe. They wanted to come to Norfolk, so we made that happen for them - well, nearly,” said Mr Hale-Sutton.
One obstacle to their progress - Bohdan’s passport being out of date - was resolved on Tuesday at the Ukrainian Embassy in Brussels, but the group are still unclear when they will be granted UK visas.
In a letter to Lord Harrington, the Home Office’s minister for refugees, Lord Dannatt wrote that he “would be very grateful if the applications for all six be processed as a matter of priority”.
The retired senior British Army officer added: “As with so many Ukrainians, they have all been through unimaginable suffering.
“Their sponsors in the UK are most anxious to provide the six with the safety and peaceful support that they desperately need.”
Approached for comment on the group’s plight, a government spokesman said: “In just four weeks, over 40,000 visas have been issued so people can rebuild their lives in the UK through the Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine.
“We are continuing to speed up visa processing across both schemes, including boosting caseworkers and simplifying the forms and we expect thousands more to come through these uncapped routes.”
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