Two children who were deported to Ukraine at the beginning of last month, despite being born and brought up in the Netherlands, are to return to their former home town of Culemborg on tourist visas, local broadcaster Omroep Gelderland said.

Maksim, who is 14, and 10-year-old Denis Andropov will be able to return to their old schools for three months, their mother Olga told the broadcaster. ‘They don’t speak or write Russian and Ukrainian, so this is the only way they can go to school,’ she said.

‘After three months, they will come home and we will ask for a new tourist visa. It is the best I can do for them,’ she said. The children will live with family members in Amersfoort at the weekend and stay with friends in Culemborg during the week.

The family was deported at the beginning of July after spending 17 years in the Netherlands after justice minister Mark Harbers refused to grant them a discretionary residency permit. Their case will be looked at again by the Dutch courts on October 24.