Long delays at Western consulates are ruining Asians’ travel plans
Overwhelmed, understaffed and processing visas at a slug’s pace
In may this year, Mahmuda Mity, an environmental researcher in Bangladesh, was invited to attend a conference in Britain in early July. She immediately applied for a British visa. By the time her application was processed and her passport returned to her it was July 13th, nearly a week after the conference had ended. Inspecting the now-useless document, she noticed that it had been issued on July 3rd, the day before the conference started. It had been left “stacked in their office for ten days”.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “The other travel chaos”
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