FRANTIC families are STILL in desperate straits battling to bring their loved ones from war-torn Ukraine to safety in Inverclyde as the local MP pleads for urgent action.

As the refugee crisis deepens, Inverkip woman Viktoriia Mykhailova, who the Tele spoke to last week, is still trying to get a visa for her daughter Dina.

The 37-year-old has been trapped all alone in Zaporizhzhia, which is now under attack, with targets in the city including the university where she works.

Viktoriia's husband Bill Wyllie, 66, who has been desperately trying to secure a visa, said: "In the early hours Dina phoned to tell us that the Russian were now attacking Zaporizhzhia and had started shelling.

"We are in a terrible state and we are powerless, there is nothing we can do.

"They hit the university and the roads out are too dangerous for a girl on her own.

"Changes to the visa scheme now mean that she doesn't have to go to a centre, so if she does manage to get to Romania or Turkey we can get her home.

"I am still trying to get the visa application processed, but it is very difficult.

"All we can really hope for is the fighting to come to an end."

Meanwhile Anna Malyna White from Quarrier's Village remains stranded in Hungary with her elderly parents, who fled Ukraine's second city but cannot get their application processed.

The 48-year-old travelled to Hungary to meet her frail mum and dad Viacheslav and Zhanna, both 82, who had escaped from Kharkiv.

They were told on arrival at a visa centre in Budapest that they would have to wait there until March 23 before even getting an appointment.

Anna says it has been 'a nightmare' navigating the ever-changing rules around visas.

Changes to the rules over biometric checks taking place in the UK, rather than elsewhere, were designed to make things easier but they have created extra confusion, with Anna frightened to withdraw the existing applications she had already made.

Anna said: "The Home Office don’t want to take any responsibility in case the new system fails."

Inverclyde MP Ronnie Cowan raised the case of Anna and her parents last week at Prime Minister's Questions and prime minister Boris Johnson promised to look in to it.

Mr Cowan said: "The UK Government is still falling well short of what is needed to rescue people whose families live in Scotland.

"Action is needed urgently to help Anna's parents, who are elderly, and Dina, as the war gets closer to her, as well as the other relatives who need to be brought to safety in Inverclyde.

"The people of Inverclyde have let their feelings be known in their efforts to provide aid, and their willingness to welcome desperate people to the area.

"The UK Government must now listen, and make this process as easy as it can possibly be."