Sandra Stefanovic Dordevic packed all her family’s belongings and got on a repatriation flight to Serbia last June, after having lived here for two years.

It was not an easy decision. She was dropping the appeals she had lodged on behalf of her three children, part of the group denied residence permits in the country.

After more than a year-long wait, the Immigration Appeal Board overturned the order for 18 of the 41 children told to leave the country.

But, throughout the wait, the families could not travel to their country and faced difficulties accessing state education, Ana Zdravkovic, a spokesperson for the families, said.

As a result of this and other complications brought about by the pandemic, some of families dropped their appeals and decided to return home.

“My children liked Malta very much. It was their home and they were very disappointed when they heard they were not going back there,” Sandra told Times of Malta.

But she had been separated from her two sons and daughter, aged between five and 11, for seven months and couldn’t bear it any longer.

When their permits were rejected in December 2019, her children were visiting family in Serbia and, due to complications re-entering Malta without valid documents, she decided to keep them there while the appeal was pending.

“Being separated from the children is something terrible and I would not wish anything like that on anyone,” she said.

After six months, she became impatient and, with the virus pandemic complicating the situation even further, she made the decision to return to Serbia for good.

“At first, it was hard for us to go back because we had already formed a life in Malta.

“The children also had problems with the language and the sudden change but, somehow, we succeeded. Of course, it’s not great but nothing can make up for our life together,” she said.

We saw that we don’t have a future in a country where they don’t respect us and our kids

“Maybe, some day, we will decide to try again but for now we stay here.”

'They did not respect us and our kids'

Another third-country national, who also dropped the appeal on behalf of her son, said her family had left their country for a better life “but found worse things we didn’t think exist in Malta, a country in the European Union.”

Her son missed a year at school and couldn’t travel because of the problems they had with his documents.

“We saw that we don’t have a future in a country where they don’t respect us and our kids,” she said.

“We went to Malta as a family and all the money we earned there we spent there.”

While her experience in Malta has left her with a bad taste, she said her son has had no problems settling back in North Macedonia.

“The move was difficult but, thankfully, now he loves it here, where he can even play outside. In Malta, we had a lot of problems to deal with. He was always stuck inside and we were always working.”

'It was the only decision'

But for Dragan Stojkovski it was the unexpected news of a third child that spurred him to drop the appeal on behalf of his daughter, Eva, and send his family back to North Macedonia.

“My wife got pregnant with a third child and she and the children had to leave Malta for her to be able to give birth and take care of the baby in its early days. Here, we have no one and I work double shifts so I would not be of much help to her,” he said.

The pandemic also meant that his wife, Elena, would not have had her work permit renewed since she had been working in hospitality, an industry hit hard by the corona-virus breakout.

There was no way she would have found an employer to hire her while five months pregnant, he explained, so she would have been left without a work permit.

Being separated from his family and withdrawing the appeal for his eldest daughter was a painful decision to make, however, “it was the only one, given this situation,” he said.

He will be travelling to meet his son, Naum, born last month, for the first time in a couple of weeks and his long-term plan is to, eventually, bring his family back to Malta so they can live here together.

Reflecting on the numerous hurdles third-country nationals have had to face routinely in this country when it comes to applying for residence permits, Dragan told Times of Malta: “They’ll be back one day and I also might still end up in the same situation. So my ordeal is yet to come.”