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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Get a life.

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.

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.

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

Yabu. The risks for a short visit aren't the same as living there full time. Our Ukrainian neighbours visit home also. I find it strange that you seem to think they shouldn't.

Going back to see family has some risk attached, but not as much risk as staying permanently.

People take risks to see loved ones.

That's all. Sometimes you just need to look beyond the labels and apply a bit of common sense.

Ukraine is a war zone. There are different types of refugees—this girl is a refugee of war. Yes, it is dangerous to go back. What would I do in her situation? I think I wouldn’t go back until Russia was out, but this is hypothetical for me.

There are other types of refugees, for example, LGBTQ refugees who risk the death penalty if they go home. I would doubt that these refugees go home.

We probably can’t give a definitive answer for all refugees, and whether it’s safe for them to visit home.

I took that post by @Devilsmommy to mean that whoever is saying that is talking absolute rubbish. Some of these posts are just nonsense, and are obviously just to bash refugees.

One of my Ukranian guests returned home fir a week to deal with a family emergency

She refused to take either her son or her mother also both living with us and was relieved to return and distressed by bav8ng to leave family members there

Jesus.

A young girl has had to leave her family and home due to a war. She has gone back because she misses home.

If you actually look (and stop being so ignorant), life is continuing in cities such as Kyiv

I teach Ukrainian refugees. Many go back to Ukraine for dental and GP appointments, as it is much easier for them to get an appointment in their home country than here. They have never spoken of danger, but they are a tough, resilient people.

But, there is little danger returning to West Ukraine. The danger is in a strip of the East where armed fighting is taking place - around Donesk, Karhkiv etc.and the Russian border.

I come from a place that was not safe to live in when I was a child. We moved suddenly at very short notice with the things that could fit in the car (although other stuff got brought over later - I don’t want to suggest we were destitute or had to make the sort of journey many Ukrainians have had to do). There were specific dangers for my dad but a risk to all of us as a result and in general.

We visited for short periods throughout my childhood, my mum wanted to see her mum and sister in particular. We didn’t go when things were particularly hot, there were areas we never went to and we hung around very close to our relatives houses where we were staying. There is absolutely no way we would’ve considered returning. Maybe some people would call that a ‘holiday’?

My relatives are all gone now and I’ve never been back. This is where I call home and where I belong.

I know a Ukrainian who is here with her 7-year-old son. They go back in some of the school holidays. And when they do, the little boy sleeps in a corridor as it's the only room in the home without windows, so the safest in the event of a bombing.

But what is the alternative for them? That she goes years without seeing her husband and adult daughter? That the little boy goes years without seeing his dad and sister?

She has to strike a balance between keeping her DS safe and keeping herself and her DS connected to their family.

Lets remove 'danger' even though obviously its still fucking dangerous.

So her whole town was destroyed and is still uninhabitable ruin in an ongoing war (along with many, many, many other towns)... where do you think all the refugees are moving back too?

If a country suddenly seized the southern half of England do you think there would magically be enough space in the north for ever single person from the south to just settle up here? (note: the north already has a MASSIVE homeless population).

There is not enough infrastructure to house a whole country in 1 city, do you think they should all live in an active war-zone, overcrowded in dangerous tent towns and slums on the outskirts of the full city. That's exactly why refugees are moved to other areas, its called displacement.

Well Kiev in particular but of course other parts of Ukraine are shelled by Russian missiles and drones daily so there are casualties every day. There are some less “important” parts that are less at risk but nowhere is fully safe really.
She IS taking a risk to go there. So are people who are staying there, but what options do they have 🤷‍♀️

But Ukranians are on the special status so travelling there doesn’t invalidate their right to stay here. Technically they are not asylum seekers.