Refugees "visiting home"

Does Afghanistan seem like a viable place to live to you? Really?

Are you joking?! Well firstly, it says in the OP that the girl has a job so there's that.

Also, a "few holidays" a year?! I don't think going back to visit family in a war torn country is what many of us would class as a holiday.

You sound absolutely awful and heartless.

I have many dear Ukrainian friends who frequently visit home. Each time they go, they are afraid. But they have husbands, brothers and sons that they want to see, and they accept the risks. They aren’t willing to live with those risks every day.

I just can’t believe what I’m reading.

Get a life.

I came to the UK as a refugee as a young child, with my family (accepted under a formal refugee program and flights were arranged by the UK govt to fly us to the UK, we did not come here as asylum seekers). I am 45 and have never gone back to that country, although my mother did go back about 10 years after we first came to the UK, to go to her father's funeral. It was a safe country by then, but by that stage we had settled in the UK. My mother would definitely not have returned within the first few years when it was still unsafe. I don't get it either.

They are here on visa’s, they are not refugees, they maintain their Ukrainian passport and travel is not restricted

Would you go on holidays to Ukraine? I believe some of it is absolutely beautiful.

No? Then maybe it is obvious why someone might remain a refugee while the war is going on and Russian soldiers are massively using rape as a weapon of war.

She won't be a recognised refugee. The UK didn't want Ukrainians claiming asylum, so instead introduced a couple of alternative systems.

I thought everyone knew that historically refugees fleeing, run over the border with just the clothes on their backs. Many still do and I do not envy them. Not the same anymore, now that asylum is a loophole for economic migrants. I know of someone that has always employed refugees in his business as he is from the same country and they all go back on holiday and so do their relatives. It is Afghanistan.

Do you accept your “confusion” about this has been adequately addressed by several of the posts on this thread? Or are you still “confused”?

This is such an incredibly callous way of thinking about things. Christ, OP. Hope you voice these thoughts in public too so everyone knows how cruel and unimaginative you are.

This.

There's a wilful refusal from some people to put themselves in anyone else's shoes, or to consider that not everyone's situation falls neatly into a perfect box.

It shouldn't be hard to grasp that a country is safe to visit, but not to live in. Or that one part of a country may be safer than another. Or that someone is willing to take certain risks to see their loved ones, based on the above grey areas and more, but not the risk of residing somewhere permanently.

It’s not an all inclusive to the Maldives, it’s a budget flight to Poland and a bus. You can get a return flight from Manchester to Przemysl for £32.

Ukrainians here are not strictly "refugees". People here on actual asylum grounds are very rarely able to travel home - it would usually result in their applications being denied. I do find the double standards a little galling, but the reasons are political rather than personal.
But simply, sometimes it can be safe to visit, but not to live.

Ukraine still may still be completely taken over by Russia in the long term, especially if Trump gets voted in and pulls back US support. It’s not exactly safe now and is still being bombed in parts , Isn’t it?

It doesn’t surprise me if people go home in periods of relative calm to see family members left behind, especially if the particular city hasn’t been bombed. I would do the same, especially if they were elderly relatives.

Firstly, Ukrainians are not technically refugees, they’re here under ‘humanitarian protection’. During WW2, some people left London or sent their children to a place of safety. Others stayed and got on with ‘life as normal’. They went to work, they went out dancing and met their friends. Maybe that was their way of coping, or perhaps they had no other options. 43,000 civilians died in the London Blitz. It wasn’t safe, despite people ‘living as normal’.

Would I want to live in a war torn country? Absolutely not. Would I return to a war torn country to visit my husband, sons, brothers, mother, etc. Absolutely, I’d crawl over broken glass to see them. Does that make it a “safe place”? Of course it bloody doesn’t.

Tell you what OP, why don’t you move to a country actively at war since you’ve decided it must be safe? Or alternatively ask yourself why you begrudge this woman having asylum in the UK.

This is really simple. Some places are not safe for refugees to live in. They might or might not be safe to visit. It has literally no bearing on the legitimacy of their refugee status. It’s just nasty refugee bashing.

My neighbour is a refugee from Ukraine, along with a very young daughter & teenage son.

She regularly goes “home” for holidays and takes the young daughter with her. Maybe four or five times a year. Never expresses any concerns for their safety. I think she leaves the son here so he won’t be drafted.

I agree that it is odd to return to the country you've fled from, for whatever reason. It's either safe enough to go to or it isn't. For some, it's govt-approved relocation.

I'm surprised he hasn't been mobilised. I thought men under 60 had to stay in Ukraine??

@Notanotherkendoll

I get your logic, I also understand other posters comments about her missing her family.

Perhaps it would have been more understandable if she had met (if possible) with relatives in say Poland or Hungary or even in the relatively safer western Ukraine.

Either way you will get flamed and labelled as a far right anti immigration fascist on MN for even raising the question on whether the migrants are genuine refugees.

This attitude of distrust and total scepticism towards people fleeing conflict and desperate situations is so, so tiring and draining. As if people are uprooting their entire lives and making arduous journeys to the UK just to profit from the wonderful, glorious (and not at all dehumanising!!) asylum or benefits systems here. 🙄Change the record already.