Mar 15, 2022: According to an AFP report, New Zealand will offer 4,000 special visas to refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine if they have family in the southern hemisphere nation as per government sources.

Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi said, “It’s a two-year visa to help people escape the current conflict and to shelter here in the hope they can return home when the war ends,” adding, it was New Zealand’s largest special visa category in decades in support of an international aid effort.

“New Zealand has moved quickly to condemn the brutal and intolerable invasion of Ukraine,” the minister said.

The estimated 1,600 Ukrainian-born citizens and residents in New Zealand will be allowed to sponsor family members for the special visa, under which they will be allowed to work.

Relatives included in the scheme include parents, grandparents and their adult siblings or adult children and their immediate family who have fled Ukraine.

“Alongside other diplomatic measures, we have acted urgently to respond to Russia’s hostility by instituting travel bans, export controls, passing the Russia Sanctions Act 2022, and providing aid funding to support crucial humanitarian work,” Faafoi said.

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