A selfless Northumberland man has paid over £3,000 to help a traumatized mother and daughter who fled war-torn Ukraine only to find themselves stuck in an Amsterdam hotel due to visa issues.

Maryna and her teenage daughter Anna left kyiv with nothing after the Russian invasion, spending two days in a train station before being allowed to board a train to freedom. And although Maryna had her visa, her daughter waited more than three weeks after she applied to receive hers, the Mirror has revealed.

Clive Smith is ready to welcome the couple with open arms to his Northumberland home and has since spent more than £3,000 to put them safely in a hotel while Anna’s visa paperwork is processed.

Read more: Ukrainian teenagers move into new temporary home in Rowlands Gill

Charities supporting those fleeing Putin’s war say cases like this are common, with sponsors angry that those they try to support are left in limbo. Clive told the Mirror: “It’s just beyond pale.

“The girl is traumatized, she spends all her time in her room, she believes herself to be responsible for the delay. She doesn’t understand that it’s not her fault.

“It’s extra stress considering what they’ve been through, it just creates unnecessary anxiety. They can see the ferries from their hotel.”

Maryna and Anna originally lived in Ukraine’s Donbass region, Clive said, but fled to kyiv in 2014 when pro-Russian troops launched an invasion. On March 1 this year, days after Putin’s latest attack began, they walked almost 10 miles in the hope of catching a train to safety.

Six weeks later, they remain in limbo, and Clive says he knows when he can welcome them. He said he was footing the bill for their stay because he felt responsible for their wellbeing – but faced another £1,000 bill if they had to stay in Amsterdam over the weekend.

“I could leave it to charity and they could stay in a room on a mattress, but I think most hosts would say they wouldn’t expect people to live in conditions where they don’t wouldn’t be themselves,” he added.

Ferry company DFDS kindly said they would transport the mother and daughter for free, but Clive said he had to repeatedly cancel their bookings due to visa delays. Organizations that support refugees trying to get to the UK have denounced the visa system.

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “It is clear that visa programs that are supposed to be designed to provide security for Ukrainians fleeing war and bloodshed are inadequate.

“Asking frightened, exhausted and traumatized Ukrainian families to fill out a long and complex visa application is unacceptable and completely disconnected from the terrifying situation in which they find themselves.”

Mr Solomon continued: “The British public came forward in their tens of thousands to welcome Ukrainians home, but we hear they felt angry and frustrated that their gesture of support got lost in a web bureaucracy and chaos, many of them dipping into their own pockets to help Ukrainian families find accommodation at the borders, while they wait for news from the British government.

“The government must urgently review the use of visas and abandon them as an immediate short-term measure, as the EU has done, and then seek to introduce a simplified emergency humanitarian visa process to ensure that we can accommodate families who desperately seek safety in the UK.

Figures released last week showed just 12,000 people had arrived in the UK from Ukraine under refugee aid schemes.

A government spokesperson said: “The Ministry of Interior has made changes to visa processing – the application form has been simplified, Ukrainian passport holders can now apply online and complete their biometric checks once in the UK, and greater resources have been invested in the system.”

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