A Covid widow kept apart from her teenage children for five months due to visa issues has spoken of her “anxiety and distress”.
Brenda Bell moved to Ellon from her hometown of Harare in Zimbabwe in January, and hasn’t seen her kids since.
After her husband Ron died from Covid 18 months ago, she decided a new start was best for the family. Moving to the UK would give her children a “better future”, she said.
South-Africa-born Ms Bell is a UK citizen through her Scottish grandparents, who settled in South Africa in the 1920s. Her British citizenship can’t be passed onto her children because she wasn’t born in the UK. Connor and Bronwyn have South African passports.
Almost £5,000 – still no visas
She paid £3,130 at the UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) visa application centre in Pretoria, South Africa. This was to secure dependency visas for children Connor, 14, and Bronwyn, 17. She also forked out £1,600 to an agent to help her with the applications.
Ms Bell was told her children’s visas would take 65 working days to process. She duly resigned from her job and pulled her kids out of school in preparation for the move.
She quickly found work at the International School Aberdeen (ISA). Connor and Bronwyn are living with Ms Bell’s sister in Zimbabwe until the visas are processed. Ms Bell has also secured a school place for her kids starting in August.
But after 135 working days, and five months since she last saw her children, the family are still waiting to be reunited.
Whenever she queries why the process is taking so long, she is simply told it’s down to a backlog due to the Ukraine crisis.
However, Ms Bell made her visa application on November 17 last year, long before Russia invaded Ukraine.
‘Constant’ pressure on Home Office
“This is causing so much anxiety and distress that I can’t even put into words the damage on our mental health,” she said.
Ms Bell’s MP, Richard Thomson, has been “regularly and constantly pushing for progress” on her case.
Mr Thomson’s office confirmed that the visa and immigration office had approved an escalation request for Ms Bell, on compassionate grounds. However, they were advised that where the application concerns minors, there are additional checks.
After so long apart from their mother, Connor and Bronwyn’s mental health is suffering, having already lost their father.
“I really need to tell the world my story because this is just not right, it’s not fair,” said Ms Bell.
‘Their father is dead. They only have me.’
“I have a job, I have accommodation, I have a school place for them. I don’t know what else to do, where to turn.
“There’s nobody accountable. Someone’s been sitting on this application for six months and not doing anything with it.
“I understand the war in Ukraine is going on and that those people need help. But I am a citizen of this country.
“I’ve pleaded with them on compassionate grounds to relook at my case.
“Their father is dead. They only have me. How can they keep us apart like this?”
She added: “My children need their mother. Since their father died they’ve had huge anxiety and mental health issues.
“I had to pull them out of school, because I thought they’d be in the UK in two months.
“So they’re currently not in school, and that’s another frustration. There’s no public schooling where they are, only private. You have to pay a term’s fees up front. That would be £4,000, and if I then get the visas I don’t get a refund.
“I’ve been reluctant to put them back in the school system because I keep thinking ‘this is the week the visas will arrive’.”
Case needs to be ‘prioritised on compassionate grounds’: MP
Mr Thomson MP said the Home Office needed to make a “renewed effort” to sort things out.
He said: “This is clearly a case deserving of being prioritised on compassionate grounds.
“While appreciating there are a range of pressures on the Home Office at this time, not least backlogs due to Covid and the war in Ukraine, the slow processing of visas is incredibly frustrating for all concerned.
“I have successfully applied for Brenda’s application to be escalated on compassionate grounds and my office has been in touch with the Home Office on an almost weekly basis.
“The Home Office needs to make a renewed effort to get the additional staff that we have been promised in place and working, in order to address the backlog as soon as possible, so that individuals and families like Brenda are not waiting longer than necessary.”
A Home Office spokeswoman said: “We are prioritising Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine applications in response to the humanitarian crisis caused by Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, so applications for study, work and family visas have taken longer to process.
“UKVI are working to reduce the current processing times as quickly as possible.”
More Schools & Family news
Screen addict children more likely to act up
Five years on, has anything changed for Moray’s nine ‘unsustainable’ schools?
School league tables: What puts Banchory top and Turriff bottom?
Conversation