Refugees in limbo: Ukrainians bound for Canada facing delays
CBC
Olena Oliinyk decided to flee Ukraine five days after the Russian invasion began.
She answered a call from her family and was given a choice: stay or run.
As the fighting grew closer to her home city of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Oliinyk's sister-in-law Natalia Krasovskaya had decided abruptly that it was time for them to leave.
The women fled together, along with Oliinyk's mother and their four young children.
Oliinyk and her family are hoping to wait out the war in Canada, but their future remains in limbo. Delays with visa paperwork have kept them in Poland.
Quickly resettling Ukrainian refugees has proved a challenge for the federal government.
A new visa system is facing backlogs and some Ukrainian families say they are running into issues with the systems set up to help them build a new life in Canada.
Leaving Ukraine was the only choice she could make, Oliinyk, 38, told CBC in an interview from Poland.
She didn't want to leave her husband and her brother behind but was terrified by the thought of her daughters, ages 8 and 10, living in a war zone.
Hours spent in dusty underground shelters had left her eldest sick and covered in hives.
"She asked me all the time, 'Mommy, when will it finish? Momma, when, when?'
"I couldn't stand with this so we decided to leave."
The family spent three days on the road, snaking their way through Moldova, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia as they joined a crush of refugees bound for Poland.
Oliinyk is among a growing number of Ukrainians struggling in their efforts to enter Canada despite promises from Ottawa that it will expedite immigration applications for refugees fleeing Russian violence and resettle as many of the displaced as it can.
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