A group of 50 orphans fleeing the Ukraine war are in limbo waiting to hear if they can enter the UK. The children, aged from six to 17, left on March 8 from five orphanages in Dnipro. Despite having flights to Stansted Airport booked for Monday, March 21, and adult supervision arranged, they are in the dark about whether they will be able to go. The children are currently staying at a hotel in Znin, northern Poland.
Charity Dnipro Kids Appeal has arranged accommodation for them in Scotland once they arrive in the UK, but the Home Office has so far stalled on issuing visas to the children, none of whom have passports. The government said it must first investigate safeguarding issues. The charity's media manager, journalist Duncan MacRae, travelled out to Poland on March 16. The 41-year-old got involved in the appeal through his football club, Hibernian FC, and is hopeful the orphans will be able to fly out next week with their chaperones.
He said: "We have been supporting six orphanages and have been able to evacuate three of them. Some of the other children have not been able to evacuate – some of the children are too unwell to be moved. We are delighted to have got some of them out. The flights are organised but the paperwork hasn't been finalised.
"The UK government are still holding out on visas. The kids have never been out of Ukraine, they have got no passports. These are not unaccompanied children, they are with carers. There are five orphanages and five orphanage mums." Two SNP MPs, Ian Blackford and Pete Wishart, raised the plight of the orphans in Parliament on Wednesday. Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Blackford accused the Home Office of "obstructing" their journey to the UK.
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said it was a "heart-rending situation" and that the delay was due to "safeguarding issues". Mr MacRae said he had not yet been contacted by the government. The children are from orphanages in Sobolygev, Shevechenko and Syvatkova. Unlike children fleeing the refugee crisis in 2015, they are not classified as "unaccompanied child asylum seekers".
They are escorted by four "orphan mums", who treat the children as their own and will stay with them until beyond the age of 18. Natalie Radchenko, 38, has worked for the charity, founded by her mum Irinia, for 17 years. She said they decided to flee Dnipro when Russian soldiers seized the nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on March 6.
"On March 8 we left the city", she said. "We left by train, it was two or three people in one bed. People were helping us on our escape, during the evacuation. They have had the cinema, bowling, they have been to play areas, people are surprised to see happy kids." More than a million refugees left Ukraine in the first seven days after Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to invade. A raft of sanctions have been levelled on the Kremlin in a bid to stop further bloodshed.
Mr Macrae continued: "It is possible we might be able to keep them all together. The safeguarding issues are not there. The excuse that they have given us for not making it possible so far just isn't valid. They have said we are keen to find out if there are people in the region, presumably he [Mr Raab] means countries bordering Ukraine. They haven't contacted us to be in dialogue. It's the kids that need some certainty.
"There's a little element of some of them that thinks it's an adventure. They are with their friends, it's good for them to all be together." He added: "We have already got a plan but we're not sure when that can potentially happen. We just need to make it happen."
