Ruth McMenamin has been welcoming refugees arriving at Warsaw central station, where volunteers are providing meals, toiletries, Polish sim cards and healthcare support. During a call with the UK Visas and Immigration helpline at the weekend, she said she was told that it will take around a week for those who have applied under the sponsorship scheme to get paperwork to enable them to travel. The new scheme — for Ukrainians without UK family members — opened for applications on Friday.
Ms McMenamin said the wait “poses very real dangers for women and children” and is “not good enough”.
A Government spokeswoman said officials were moving “as quickly as possible” to help refugees find safety in the UK, and that call handlers were not giving out “exact timescales to complete an application”. In guidance issued on Friday, Ukrainian refugees were told not to travel to the UK until they receive a decision on their applications. It came as a group of Ukrainian orphans due to fly to London were stuck in Poland after a key piece of paperwork was not provided in time.
The 52 young travellers and their carers were due to leave Warsaw yesterday, and travel on to Scotland. However, before the plane left Heathrow a form that should have been sent by the Ukrainian government to the Polish ministry of family and social policy, needed to release the group, was not sent in time. It is now said the Virgin flight will not take place before tomorrow with organisers looking at alternatives.
