Even getting to Britain seems an impossible mission for a group of 30 former Iraqi interpreters and their families who have been stranded for weeks in Jordan after waiting months in Iraq.

Living in rented apartments in Amman, they are worried that their Jordanian visas will expire before plane tickets materialise. This would force them either to continue waiting illegally in Jordan or return to Iraq, where they fear for their lives because of their association with the British.

The Home Office insists that it is cooperating closely with the Jordanians and does not expect any problems. The Iraqis, however, are not convinced. “I worry about the visa issue every day,” said one interpreter who, like all the others, was forced to quit his job because of militia threats. “Why don’t the British just take us straight to the UK?”

Ali, 28, another long-serving interpreter, has dreamt of escaping to Britain since October, when he first heard about the Government’s assistance package. Eight months on, he is still waiting. “The Americans are helping their interpreters, the Danish did the same and now the Australians are following suit. What is going on with the British?” he said.

The interpreters, many of whom are married with children, applied to move to Britain under a scheme set up in coordination with the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR. But this first requires applicants to travel to a third country to gain refugee status.

The process is far more time-consuming than simply airlifting the Iraqis direct to Britain – an option that is open only to those who are still working for the British Forces in southern Iraq or a government department.

Ali, who had been waiting in hiding in Iraq, was told in April that he would be among the first batch to go to Amman to apply for asylum. British officials in Basra gave him $6,200 (£3,100) to cover his expenses – married couples received slightly more.

Ali and the rest of the group were then told that “the procedure would take just six weeks”, he said. “When we reached Amman, the UNHCR said we would have to stay six months, maybe longer.”

A Home Office spokesman insisted that everyone was informed that the process would take up to half a year.

Once in Jordan, all the Iraqis were interviewed up to three times by the UNHCR. Three weeks later, a Home Office team arrived. It interviewed about half of them, leaving the other half worried about why they had been missed out. The spokesman said that the team would return next month to speak to the others. He said that the first load of Iraqis could expect to fly to Britain in July.But one former interpreter is tired of waiting and said he was thinking of going to the UNHCR to ask about “the possibility of asylum in another country because I’m really fed up with the British Government”.

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