Home Office ‘mistakes and delays’ mean girl, 4, must stay trapped in Ukraine

Alika has a UK sponsor, and applied for visa in March, but is one of few children left in her Kharkiv neighbourhood

A four-year-old girl remains stranded in a block of flats on the Ukrainian frontline four months after attempts began to bring her to the UK, a delay campaigners have blamed on a series of government blunders".

Efforts to rescue Alika Zubets from the city of Kharkiv began on 21 March when her UK sponsor applied for a visa under the Homes for Ukraine scheme and expected her to reach north Staffordshire by mid-April at the latest. Instead, she remains one of the few children left in her Kharkiv neighbourhood, with no schools or nurseries open and the constant threat of shelling from Russian forces nearby.