New Zealand could easily be home for 1000 Ukrainians

N. BARTRAM (Letters, 14.7.22) and I are on the same page. We can, and should, offer refuge (as we have done, in the past, for Cambodians and Syrians) for Ukrainians.

It does not reflect well upon New Zealand that, until recently, only 227 refugees from Ukraine had been accepted into the country.

This is about 5% of the 4000 places that were offered last March, when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and then immigration minister Kris

Faafoi announced the ‘‘special Ukraine policy’’.

Even then, only those with close family links here were eligible.

In contrast, neighbouring Poland has received a little more than 3 million refugees; the population of Warsaw has grown by 15% and Gdansk by an extraordinary 34%.

With an erratic Vladimir Putin now upping the ante, mobilising many more thousands of his troops, and “not bluffing” about using tactical nuclear weapons, the situation may become yet the more dire, recent Ukrainian successes in the eastern battlefields notwithstanding.

Back in the day, in 1944, on one single United States Navy ship, we took in 838 Poles, invited by the prime minister of the time, they escaping the European conflict.

They settled in the small town of Pahiatua. And of course there were many others who came at the time.

Dunedin couldn’t realistically manage 15% to 34% a la Poland. But surely we could cope with a population increase of, say, just 1%?

Unfortunately it is a matter of geography that a Ukrainian can walk to Poland, but not to New Zealand. Could we not send over our air force Boeing 757 on a mercy mission?

Come on. Just 1000 souls.

R. Gardner

Waverley ...................................