Refugees "visiting home"

[Notanotherkendoll]

I'm not sure how I feel after this conversation with a friend so would like to hear other opinions.
My friend took in a Ukrainian refugee back in 2022, she was a 18/19 year old teenager. She didn't stay for long before getting employment/started studying and was able to move out but they have remained in touch and my friend sort of views herself as the girls "uk mum".
Anyway friend is once again beside herself as she has gone back to Kyiv for a few days. This isn't the city she is from but sadly the city she was from was under siege for sometime and is now mostly destroyed. She is going to visit her family who all moved to Kyiv, as the only girl her family pushed her to flee when the war started but her mum stayed put.

This has me thinking, surely if it is safe enough for her to return home to visit, it's safe enough for her to move back? I thought the whole point of being a refugee was that your own country wasn't safe, if you are going back to visit how can that be the case?

AIBU to think it's incompatible with the very nature of being a refugee to be able to visit home?

Some of my father's family left Germany one step ahead of the trains to gas chambers.

One at least of them went back to Germany as soon as the war was over to help start rebuilding the universities there. He had a job here but used his holidays to do what he felt was an important work there.

I'm so glad that small-minded people here didn't question his right to have taken refuge here, or his right to continue to live here (and pay taxes here, and suffer shortages here...) while helping the poor benighted country he'd escaped from a few years earlier.

We gave her a home and food. I think that says what my feelings about refugees are. What a weird take. My point was if folk do have an issue with refugees going home she at least paid for her own ticket and wasn’t depending on charities or the government to fund it.

Well exactly - I'm appalled at the lack of historic perspective so many posters have.

OP,
I've just been talking to my nephew who's girlfriend is Ukrainian and it really made me think of this post.
If I understood your first post correctly this girl is in Kyiv right now. If that is the case, last night Kyiv spent 8 hours under air raid alert due to drone attacks. There were explosions.

No it is not safe. That is the risk she has taken in going home to see family. We can all decide for ourselves if that is a risk we would be willing to take but it's absolutely not safe and no one should have to live under those conditions.

Exactly. And even Lviv has just been hit - people have died and been injured as a result. Everyone always says Lviv is so safe but it’s really not if this can happen any time.

But that’s not the test for refugee status- whether or not somewhere is an ok place to live. To be honest Ukraine is still at war so I can understand the need for asylum. But I find it a bit more difficult in the case of Afghanistan. If you had to flee persecution from the Taliban-why would you visit?

you used Ukrainina way too many times in your posts to be a typo

Exactly. I hope she has a safe trip. Must be so hard to be away for that long, knowing your home city is destroyed, your family are in danger and your brothers/uncles/father are fighting and at risk.

What does that mean? Is that just an innocent typo or is there something more to it? I have no idea what it means or if there’s a hidden meaning to it.

Maybe her n is sticky

I understand what you’re saying, and I’m wondering the same thing, but maybe they’re not in immediate danger from the Taliban if they’re only visiting for a few days and they really want to keep in touch with their family.

Some people are so desperate to see their family they will risk everything. If I had a child in a war torn country and I could visit them I would. I'd consider risking my life the price I had to pay.

This girl is making a short visit, balancing the risk against her needs. Long visits I wouldnt understand.