Alona Vovk with daughter Karolina, 6
(Picture: Alona Vovk)Nearly 30,000 refugees have so far applied for the British Government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme.
Already more than four million people have fled Ukraine to escape the war, the United Nations (UN) said.
The Home Office revealed 25,500 visas have been issued this includes 2,700 under the sponsorship scheme and 22,800 under the family scheme.
There have been 28,300 visa applications received under the Homes for Ukraine scheme and 31,200 under the Ukraine Family Scheme as of March 29, according to official figures.
The Homes for Ukraine scheme allows individuals, charities, community groups and businesses to offer refuge to an individual or family from Ukraine who are fleeing the war.
Ukrainian applicants will not need to have an existing tie to the UK, unlike other visa application schemes.
Anyone with a spare home or room available can offer it to a Ukrainian national or family.
Meanwhile, the Ukraine Family Scheme allows applicants to join family members or extend their stay in the UK. It is free to apply.
Those who are eligible will be able to live, work and study in the UK with access public funds.
It came as a Ukrainian mother spoke to The Standard about her desire to settle in south London after she fled the war with her two children and her mother.
Alona Vovk, 30, spoke of the horrors of war, fleeing gunfire with her children and the heartache of leaving her husband behind.
The former broadcast make-up artist told the Standard: “I pray that some family will want to shelter us. It would be great to be able to learn a language and find at least some work. I know it’s very expensive to live in London.”
In a joint letter to their ministerial counterparts Priti Patel and Michael Gove, shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, and shadow levelling up secretary, Lisa Nandy, decried what they called a “shameful scale of bureaucracy”, which they claimed is “preventing desperately vulnerable people from reaching sanctuary in the UK”.
They called for clarity on the length of time taken for visas to be issued and how long security checks are taking.
The Labour MPs wrote: “The result of unnecessary Home Office bureaucracy is that desperate Ukrainian families are being let down.
“While the response of the British public has been overwhelming, with more than 150,000 families signed up to open their homes, the system you have created is squandering that generosity and failing to deliver the support that our country rightly wants to provide.
“The Government has known for months about the potential invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
“It is therefore unacceptable that, more than a month on from the start of the conflict, there has been so little progress and there are so many people waiting in limbo before they can reach some security and support.”
Sonya Sceats, chief executive of the Freedom from Torture charity, described the sponsorship scheme numbers as “woeful”, and called on the Government to “cut the red tape”.
“In a month where people across the country signed up to welcome more refugees than the Government has in 10 years, these woeful numbers prove why visa-based schemes are an unsuitable gateway for refugees fleeing Ukraine to reach safety here in the UK,” she said.
“Increasing reports of horrendous sexual violence against Ukrainian women and girls make it all the more urgent for the Government to cut the red tape so that survivors can get here quickly and access services from specialist trauma services like Freedom from Torture.”
