A WOMAN in Westbourne has slammed the “absolute shambles” of a government for making a Ukrainian family she wanted to house wait for more than 13 weeks to come to the UK.
Kelly Siaki registered her interest to house a single mother and her two children on March 27 but has yet to see them.
The family were seeking refuge from the war-torn country of Ukraine, which is still under attack from Russia.
But after more than 13 weeks of waiting for the family to arrive, she has criticised the system which is in place to send refugees to the UK.
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Kelly said: “It’s an absolute shambles and is just an opportunity for the government to go onto the news and get good publicity.
“There’s no system in place and it’s embarrassing. This is people's lives.
“I sponsored a family because I thought there was an emergency and a war and people needed a home.
“There has been a lot of time and stress we have been under trying to get this family in the UK.
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“Nobody seems to be interested. They are people at at end of the day.”
Kelly initially waited two weeks for a family to come and when she heard nothing, she was eventually told the only way to get support is through her local MP.
She contacted Conor Burns, MP for Bournemouth West, about the issue. After several calls and emails with his team, she didn’t get anywhere.
She added: “I don’t understand why it is my local MP that is responsible for this and if he is, why isn’t he doing his job?”
The Ukrainian family are currently in Poland, where Kelly said the mother “feels like a hostage”, and are expected to come closer to the UK in the Republic of Ireland this weekend.
MP Conor Burns was approached for a comment.
A Government spokesperson said: “More than 86,600 Ukrainians have arrived in the UK on our uncapped visa schemes for Ukraine, showing the steps we have taken to speed up the process are working.
“Applications are usually processed in the order they are received, but cases vary in complexity. Where we are made aware of an administrative error we also act swiftly to ensure people have the documents they need to travel to the UK.”
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