A Ukrainian woman stuck in Calais with her family has warned they may be forced to return home if their UK visas are rejected. Tetiana Osadchuk, 26, is facing a five-day wait to discover the fate of her application to join father Vladmir, 54, who works in construction in Reading.
She fears authorities will block her, mother Lecia, 48, and brother Victor, 16, as her father has only lived in Britain for two years and has a pre-settled visa status. Ms Osadchuk says she was told obtaining UK visas would not be an issue after fleeing her hometown of Chernivtsi in western Ukraine.
"My mum doesn't want to go anywhere else", she said, "Her only foreign language is English. She will go back to Ukraine if she can't get in. At least there we can speak Russian and Ukrainian."
Speaking on the Calais seafront near a youth hostel – where around 130 Ukrainian refugees are staying free of charge – medical student Ms Osadchuk called for the UK to streamline its controversial visa process. "It all takes so long and still we don't understand if we can cross into the UK", she said.
"We are helping lots of people in the hostel with their forms because they can't understand English and the forms aren't translated. The UK government needs to simplify the process so that others can apply without problems."
Ms Osadchuk arrived in Calais on Saturday before being asked to visit the visa application centre in Paris on Tuesday. She was then told to wait five days for a decision.
She said authorities in Romania, which she initially crossed into from Ukraine, told her visas would not be an issue and encouraged her to drive directly to the UK's border in Calais. Her grandmother and extended family remain in Ukraine.
Outside the hostel, another Ukrainian family also faced a nervous wait as they loaded three guinea pigs into their car ahead of a 190-mile drive to Paris for biometric tests. The pets have been transported on a six-day car journey from Kyiv with owner Anna Bolotina, 17, her mother Galina, 40 and father Andrey, 47.
The teenager said her family was hoping for permission to cross into the UK to join her grandmother, who has lived in Worcester for ten years. She said: "We're nervous but at least we don't have Russian planes in the sky.
"Our car is our home now. We're hoping the visa will be approved."
Ms Bolotina said the family would stay in France if their visa application was rejected. She spoke on a bright and crisp day in Calais, where locals appear to have continued their lives around the hostel that has become a makeshift humanitarian shelter.
One resident living opposite the site joked: “We’re used to this situation here in Calais.” Refugee charity Care4Calais, which already provides aid for hundreds of migrants living in tents around the French city, said that it is also helping some Ukrainian refugees.
The UK Home Office has defended the pace of its response, adding it is setting up another visa application centre closer to Calais. As of yesterday, 957 visas had been issued to Ukrainian refugees. The European Union has waived visas for up to three years, with Poland alone taking in more than 1.2 million people so far.
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