I had these same issues myself when switching from iPhone to Kompakt. I ended up installing Fossify Contacts on my Kompakt (and hiding the Mudita Contacts app from my app drawer in inkOS), deleting all of my already imported contacts, emailing the single Apple VCF file of all of my iPhone’s contacts to myself, opening the email in Thunderbird on my Kompakt, then opening the attached VCF file with the Fossify Contacts app. Fossify Contacts is able to read the iPhone contacts perfectly and retains all information fields including profile photos.
After installing and setting up Fossify Contacts, I ended up also installing Fossify Phone and Fossify Messages to complete the trifecta. I set them both up as default apps via the newly accessible MuditaOS K 1.4.0 update. Unfortunately there is no option to set a new default contacts app. It would be amazing if this option were added in an upcoming software update, @urszula.