Sally Becker - the 'Angel of Mostar' - says she is stuck in Poland with 167 vulnerable Ukrainian refugees after a red-tape wrangle with British officials who are preventing them from coming to the UK. The aid worker, who helped rescue hundreds of people from war-torn Bosnia, said she has grave “concerns” for the women and children after their paperwork was rejected.
Sally, 58, claims she set off on the mission to Ukraine to save orphaned youngsters and mothers with the full acknowledgement of the British Government last month. She said many of the refugees came from areas where there was fierce fighting.
And they had made a 22-hour train journey and collected more children en route who escaped from places like Mariupol, before crossing the border with Poland. But when they were ready to travel to the UK, Sally says the Home Office asked for more evidence that the Ukrainian government had sanctioned the evacuation.
As result of this, their flight, which was booked for Friday, had to be cancelled. She now says that the group of nearly 200 vulnerable refugees have just days to find a solution or they will have “nowhere to go”.
She said: “I’m completely dependent on the British Government to help me bring these children to a safe haven in the UK. We’ve got grandmothers who’ve been given custody of children because their parents have either been killed or they’ve had to fight.
“We have children who have been deprived of parents since birth, and many of them are extremely vulnerable and they really need help. At the moment there’s no sign of any approval coming through, and it’s really worrying. The children, the mothers, the guardians - they really don’t know what’s happening.”
Sally explained that she had set off for Dnipro in the central-East of Ukraine, at the end of April, to help rescue orphaned children who had fled the fighting. At that point, she claimed there was no problem obtaining permission to bring the children to the UK.
She said: “I’ve been on this mission for a month, and I’ve been trying to get these children to the UK. They’re orphaned children, vulnerable children, and mothers with large families who are unable to get sponsorship for homes for Ukraine, with five or six children. I lot of them come out of the hot zones, the worst areas under fire, and we were trying to get them into Britain.”
Sally managed to gather 167 refugees and negotiated safe passage for them to the Polish border, through an arrangement with the Ukrainian government. She then took them on a 22-hour train journey to the Polish border where a Virgin Atlantic plane was waiting to fly them to the UK a few days later.
She said: “The government arranged for three carriages to be attached to the train especially for the children and they travelled for over 22 hours. And after this long, difficult arduous train journey we arrive in Lviv where we were housed in an old orphanage for two days, as we waited to cross the border. Buses were provided by the local administration but just after crossing the border."
Sally was told the Home Office didn’t have enough information about the Ukrainian government’s involvement in the mission to allow the visas to be approved. She said: “I’m rather confused because the Home Office have known about this mission for over a month.
“The Ukrainian government facilitated everything. They provided the train, they provided the buses from the station and the building where the children could stay until we crossed the border. And now I’m being told that I have to prove that the Ukrainian government have supported this mission."
Sally explained that plans are in place to allow the refugees to stay at two hotels in the Wirral, Merseyside, with a six-month stay completely funded by The Steve Morgan Foundation. She added: “We’re just hoping that the government can do something to enable us to leave on Tuesday because at that point, we’ll have to vacate this hotel.
“The Jakovska Foundation has kindly provided food and accommodation for the whole group free of charge since Monday, but we should have left for the airport today. Luckily they’ve allowed us to extend until Tuesday, but at that point, we will have 167 women and children with no place to go.”
The Home Office has been contacted for comment.
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