Back in Vovchansk Russian attacks had intensified and the town was destroyed by shelling.
Halyna’s son, now 14, was forced to flee with his grandparents to the city of Kharkiv, 70km away.
For Halyna, knowing her son is in danger is almost unbearable.
“There are explosions [where he is] every day,” she says. “You go to sleep and you don’t know if you’re going to wake up in the morning.”
Work Rights Centre, a charity supporting migrants, says it has heard from nearly 200 Ukrainians who are separated from family members, external and trying to bring them to the UK.
Chief executive Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol says the current policy is “heartless” and has “torn apart” families.
“We have seen parents spend months fighting for a way to bring their child to the UK,” she says.
“Others have tragically endured the death of a family member in Ukraine while they were searching for a sponsor to bring them to the UK.”
The charity is calling on the new government to reverse the changes brought in by its predecessors so Ukrainians without the right to live in the UK permanently can still act as sponsors and reunite their families.
When it was in opposition Labour said the changes sent “the wrong message to the people of Ukraine about our willingness to stand with them”.
With the party now in government, the Home Office says the schemes are kept “under continual review”.
Nadiia Yashan, an immigration advisor for Work Rights Centre who is from Ukraine herself, says the changes were a huge shock.
When they were announced, she says some of her clients were in the middle of applications or about to sign leases on a flat where they had hoped their family would be able to come and live.
Like the Ukrainians she works with, Nadiia says she was “devastated” by the news as she had hoped to bring her own mother to the UK if the situation in Ukraine worsened.
As she came to the UK on a student visa, with her right to stay extended because of the war, Nadiia does not have the right to live in the UK permanently so could no longer act as a sponsor for her mother.
“I feel guilty, because maybe I should have [applied for her to come to the UK] sooner,” she says.
“I’m very, very concerned, and I’m thinking every day, what if it gets worse, and I need her to be here immediately and I can’t do anything?”
Source:
www.bbc.com
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