Lawmakers in the United Kingdom are mounting pressure on the government to facilitate the entry requirements for refugees from Ukraine after fewer than 1,000 visas have been issued so far.
In this regard, the Westminster leader of the Scottish National Party, Ian Blackford, told Prime Minister Boris Johnson that nobody should support the UK’s response to the refugee crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, VisaGuide.World reports.
“760 visa approvals in two weeks is disgraceful. In that time, Poland has taken over 1.2 million refugees. Hungary has taken 190,000 refugees. Germany has taken over 50,000 refugees. Italy has over 17,000 refugees. Ireland, a country of just over 5 million people, has given sanctuary to three times as many refugees as the United Kingdom,” he pointed out in this regard.
In addition, Blackford asked if the Prime Minister finds it acceptable that “his Home Secretary has overseen one of the slowest, most bureaucratic and incompetent refugee responses in the whole of Europe,” as reported by Euronews.
According to the figures provided by the United Nations Office for Refugees, over 2.15 million citizens of Ukraine have fled the war, heading mainly to its neighboring countries such as Poland, Romania, Moldova, Hungary, and Slovakia.
According to the shadow home secretary from the main opposition Labour party, Yvette Cooper, most citizens from Ukraine are still being held up by the Home Office bureaucracy or being turned away.
In this regard, the UK Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, said that Britain needs to speed up the processing of visas for refugees.
In addition, he told the BBC that authorities in the UK could and would do more to help refugees from Ukraine.
Wallace said the UK had granted visas to 300 Ukrainian refugees under the new scheme up to this point.
According to him, a total of 17,700 applications to re-join relatives had been initiated.
French officials said 300 people had been turned away while attempting to reach the UK.
Due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a large number of European countries have imposed sanctions and other bans, including the closure of their airspace to airlines from Russia.
The war in Ukraine has also led authorities in European countries to prepare to receive a large number of migrants.
Earlier this month, the Commission of the European Union suggested the activation of the Temporary Protection Directive in order to help people fleeing during the Ukraine war.
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