{"id":13217,"date":"2022-03-10T05:11:25","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T13:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=13217"},"modified":"2022-03-10T05:12:41","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T13:12:41","slug":"as-millions-flee-ukraine-some-nations-take-in-far-more-refugees-than-others-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=13217","title":{"rendered":"“As millions flee Ukraine, some nations take in far more refugees than others”, NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

As many as 4 million people could be forced to flee violence in Ukraine<\/a>, but some nations, including the U.K., have granted only a few hundred visas.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Chantal Da Silva,\u00a0March 10, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n

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LONDON \u2014 More than 2 million people had fled Ukraine<\/a> as of Wednesday in what could soon become Europe\u2019s biggest refugee crisis of the 21st century, and the worst since World War II. A spokesperson for UNICEF told NBC News that at least half of them are children, some of whom have been forced to travel on their own.<\/p>\n

The U.N.\u2019s refugee agency, UNHCR, welcomed a decision<\/a> last week by the European Union to offer temporary protection to Ukrainians and third-country nationals who have refugee or permanent residence status in Ukraine, offering them \u201cimmediate protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the bloc and countries neighboring Ukraine have received praise, however, other nations are being accused of falling behind, particularly Britain, after it acknowledged\u00a0issuing just 300 visas to Ukrainians so far in response to the crisis.<\/p>\n

‘Painfully slow’\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The U.K., which left the E.U. in 2020 to much fanfare, issued the\u00a0 visas under a program for refugees with family links to the country, a spokesman for the Home Office, the agency in charge of immigration, said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people from Ukraine,\u201d said the spokesman, Patrick Dwyer-Cummins.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"TOPSHOT-UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT\"<\/picture>
With many men staying behind to join the fight, families have been split apart and forced to say their goodbyes on station platforms.<\/span>Ditmar Dilkoff \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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He said that since last Friday, the Home Office had received a total of 8,900 applications under the program, with appointments made at visa application centers for nearly half of those cases and 340 undergoing security checks.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s Ukraine Family Scheme \u201cwill help tens of thousands of people to join their family members in the U.K.,\u201d Dwyer-Cummins said.<\/p>\n

However, immigration advocates have said that the British government should be waiving the program altogether and allowing Ukrainians to seek refuge in the U.K. regardless of whether they have family connections to Britain.<\/p>\n

With Moldova already accepting more than 82,000 people fleeing Ukraine, Sonya Sceats of the refugee organization Freedom From Torture\u00a0condemned the U.K. for \u201cinsisting on these visa-based schemes,\u201d branding its efforts a \u201ccruel farce.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sceats said that “the whole point” of the 1951 Refugee Convention<\/a>, a U.N. treaty that established protections for refugees, \u201cwas to put a stop to these kinds of barriers and to establish the principle that if you\u2019re fleeing for your life \u2026 you are allowed to turn up and claim asylum on arrival,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Concerns raised in Calais<\/strong><\/h2>\n

So far, the majority of those fleeing have crossed into countries neighboring Ukraine like Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia and Romania, while thousands of others have made their way to countries farther afield, including Germany, France and Ireland.<\/p>\n

With France already locked in an ongoing dispute with Britain over the country\u2019s migration policies, French Interior Minister G\u00e9rald Darmanin accused the British government of showing a \u201clack of humanity\u201d after he said dozens of Ukrainian refugees were turned away at Calais border crossings and told to visit visa offices outside of the port city, the British newspaper The Guardian<\/a> reported on Sunday.<\/p>\n

British Home Secretary Priti Patel denied\u00a0the French minister\u2019s account, telling the media: \u201cLet me just correct what has been said by the French government. The British government is not turning anybody around or turning anybody back at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clare Moseley, founder of the refugee organization Care4Calais, which supports refugees and asylum-seekers in Calais, said it was true that those seeking entry into the U.K. were being turned away. She said her team had been helping Ukrainians with their visa applications, but said many were struggling to book visa application appointments online.<\/p>\n

The U.K.\u2019s handling of the situation was \u201cnot really a surprise,\u201d Moseley said. \u201cThis is more generous than their normal approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the U.K.\u2019s handling of the situation, immigration advocates also took aim at the British government for trying to usher in new rules under the proposed Nationality and Borders Bill, that would criminalize asylum-seekers who reach the U.K. through nongovernment sanctioned routes, including crossing the English Channel via small boats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Hundreds of thousands of children have had their futures reshaped overnight by the war.<\/span>Omar Marques \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cWhat they\u2019re trying to do is do the minimum they can to help Ukrainian refugees without changing this cold (measure),\u201d Sceats said in an interview last week.<\/p>\n

The fate of the borders bill remains unclear, however, with the clause outlining the contentious rule being rejected by Britain\u2019s House of Lords last week after facing widespread condemnation, including from the UNHCR. The change will go back to the U.K.\u2019s House of Commons and then the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson can either accept the changes or challenge them.<\/p>\n

Criticism of the bill comes as the Home Office faces scrutiny over what immigration advocates say is an increasingly hard-line approach to immigration.<\/p>\n

Asked to respond to the criticisms of the bill, a Home Office spokesperson referred to past comments from Patel about the U.K.\u2019s efforts to assist Ukrainians.<\/p>\n

U.S. urged to do more\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As Britain faces backlash over its response to the refugee crisis in Ukraine, the United States is also facing calls to ramp up its response.<\/p>\n

On Friday, The Washington Post\u2019s editorial board issued a call<\/a> for President Joe Biden to commit to accepting \u201ctens of thousands of Ukrainians\u201d to help ease the situation at Ukraine\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

It said that while the U.S. had already taken important steps to help Ukrainians, including offering temporary protected status to those already in the U.S. on business, tourism or student visas, there was still more to be done.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president can do this on his own, without Congress. This is yet another way to truly stand with the brave and industrious Ukrainian people and our allies around the world. It would also provide more workers for the U.S. economy,\u201d the editorial board said.<\/p>\n

Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita also called on the U.S. on Sunday to increase its humanitarian assistance as the number of refugees arriving in her country from Ukraine climbed into the tens of thousands.<\/p>\n

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Many Ukrainians have fled across the border to Poland. <\/span>Attila Husejnow \/ SOPA\/LightRocket via Getty<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Gavrilita made the comments before a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said Moldova could \u201ccount on that support across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the war in Ukraine unfolds, the U.N. refugee agency has said that as many as 4 million people could be forced to flee\u00a0 and the international community will be expected to respond.<\/p>\n

At the same time, both Moseley and Sceats said it was important that all people fleeing Ukraine be treated equally \u2014 and that those seeking refuge from conflict, persecution and disasters in other countries not be forgotten.<\/p>\n

Already at Ukrainian borders there have been concerns that not all fleeing the country are being treated equally, with African citizens living in Ukraine reporting racist discrimination and abuse<\/a> while trying to escape, sparking condemnation from a number of countries, as well as from United Nations bodies.<\/p>\n

\u201cReports that Africans are singled out for unacceptable dissimilar treatment would be shockingly racist and in breach\u201d of international law, African Union officials said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moseley said she had also seen a disparity in Calais over the treatment of Ukrainian refugees compared with those fleeing other countries. Ukrainian nationals, she said, were being hosted in hotels by the local government and given food, while those fleeing other nations, including Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen, were being \u201cleft to sleep outside in the freezing cold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not given food. They\u2019re hungry. They\u2019re not even given access to a visa scheme,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is a very striking difference in treatment here which is very upsetting for a lot of people.\u201d The Calais government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Chantal Da Silva is a breaking news editor for NBC News Digital based in London.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As many as 4 million people could be forced to flee violence in Ukraine, but some nations, including the U.K., have granted only a few hundred visas. By Chantal Da Silva,\u00a0March 10, 2022 LONDON \u2014 More than 2 million people had fled Ukraine as of Wednesday in what could soon become Europe\u2019s biggest refugee crisis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13217"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13217"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13219,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13217\/revisions\/13219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}