A MOTHER from Basingstoke said the visa waiting time is a “shambles” as Ukrainian girls have been sleeping on the floor of a church for weeks while they wait.

Clare Kinnear who lives in Hannington in Basingstoke has been waiting for two girls from Ukraine, aged just 20 and 22, who she has sponsored to come over to the UK since March 23.

The two young girls are currently sleeping on the floor of one church in Warsaw while they wait for their visa applications to be processed so they can fly to the safety of the UK.

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Clare has become increasingly concerned about the long wait especially as her house has been inspected and is ready to go.

She said there are others in the Basingstoke area that are waiting too and said they are all just “stuck”.

She said: “When the homes for Ukraine scheme opened like everyone else, we thought about what we can do to help and we are in a position where we had two spare beds sitting there empty so we wanted to open it up.

“I found a Facebook group that had started called accommodation for Ukraine refugees and I posted on that and just four minutes later I got a ping back from a girl saying she is in Kyiv and could she bring her friend. They said they needed to escape, and they were living in a bomb shelter.”

On March 22 and March 23 Clare and her family spend the whole day with the girls filling in the applications for visas but the pair have been waiting ever since.

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Clare added: “We have heard absolutely nothing. When you hear nothing the big worry for them and for us is are they actually on the system and where has it gone.

“What is happening is people who applied a week ago are getting visas so they are claiming it's done in date order but it’s absolutely not."

Clare said it is also untrue that mothers and daughters and vulnerable people are getting preference.

She added: “It is a desperate situation; it is just a shambles and people in the group are not feeling proud to be British and that is really sad.”

She has got "everything waiting for them" including jobs lined up for the girls when they can return.

A Government spokesman added: "In just five weeks, over 56,000 visas have been issued so people can rebuild their lives in the UK through the Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine.

"We continue to process visas as quickly as possible. The Home Office has made changes to streamline the visa system – including simplifying the forms and boosting staff.”

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