No consular services
France: British inhuman towards Ukrainians
3/6/2022 8:36 am
The first refugees from Ukraine arrive in Calais, France. You want to travel to Great Britain. However, the British authorities send them to Paris or Brussels for visas. The French interior minister finds this “completely inappropriate” and speaks of a “lack of humanity”.
France has accused Britain of a “lack of humanity” towards war refugees from Ukraine. In a letter to his British colleague Priti Patel, France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin complained that the British authorities were “completely inappropriate” in dealing with refugees who had arrived in Calais in northern France in the past few days and wanted to travel from there to their relatives in Great Britain.
In the past few days, 400 Ukrainian refugees have presented themselves at border posts in Calais, Darmanin wrote. 150 of them were asked to go to Paris or Brussels to apply for visas for the United Kingdom at the British consulates there.
Britain must offer real consular services in Calais, Darmanin demanded. “It is essential that your consular representation – exceptionally and for the duration of this crisis – can issue visas for family reunification locally in Calais,” the Home Secretary wrote to his colleague. It is “incomprehensible” that the United Kingdom is able to offer such services on the Polish-Ukrainian border, but not in its direct neighbor France.
Numerous deaths during crossings
“Our shores have been the scene of so much tragedy,” Darmanin wrote, referring to the many refugees who die each year trying dangerously to cross the English Channel from France to Britain. “Let’s not add these Ukrainian families to them.”
The refugee problem in the English Channel has been straining relations between Great Britain and France for months. Tensions were fueled by a serious boat accident in November that killed 27 refugees. At the time, Paris and London had accused each other of not doing enough against gangs of people smugglers.
According to the UN, more than 1.3 million people have fled the country since Russia’s war of aggression began in Ukraine. So far, 756,000 of them have been taken in by neighboring Poland.