POLITICS-YUGOSLAVIA: The Land Of Refugees

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Mar 28 2000 (IPS) - The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) has the largest refugee population in Europe housing at least 750.000 of the over two million people displaced during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia.

Sadako Ogata, head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), said recently that the budget for operation in the Balkans area was the largest in the world, about 70 million United States dollars.

Refugees in FRY, made out of Serbia (7,5 million people) and tiny Montenegro (population of 650.000), are mostly Serbs who fled wars of disintegration of former Yugoslavia since 1991.

The latest UNHCR statistics show that 480.000 people are living in Serbia proper, while Montenegro houses about 23.200 refugees.

There have been several waves of Serb refugees in the past decade. In 1991, they came in dozens of thousands from Croatia, in 1992 from Bosnia, but the largest influx was in 1995 and 1999.

In August 1995, the Croatian army overrun the rebellious Krajina region and between 150.000 and 200.000 Serbs came to Serbia proper in an exodus that lasted 10 days.

Last June, after the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, air strikes ended and the UN administration took over the Kosovo province, more than 200.000 Serbs were reported to have fled to Serbia.

According to the UNHCR these people belong to the category of “internally displaced persons” (IDPs), as Kosovo is still within the administrative borders of FRY.

Refugees and IDPs mostly rely on humanitarian aid as the economically impoverished, war torn Serbia is hardly able to provide for its own population.

According to official statistics 30 percent of the population live below the poverty datum line. The statistics show that close to 2.5 million people have a monthly income of less than 30 US dollars.

“After the change of government in Croatia last January, one can express cautious optimism regarding the return of Serb refugees. There is an opening in the approach of the new Croatian government, that not only accepts the return of Serb refugees, but welcomes them (Serbs) back,” Ogata told journalists in Belgrade recently.

Eduardo Arboleda, deputy UNHCR representative in Belgrade, told IPS that about 16.000 Serbs are due to return to Croatia “within the next few months”.

“Some 22.000 people are ready to leave Serbia for Croatia, but they can not all go immediately. Croatian authorities are doing a village to village assessment in the areas of return, checking the infrastructure, agriculture, educational and health care facilities and that is a big task,” he said.

But the situation is less favourable for Serbs from Kosovo.

“There is no desire or political will in Kosovo, among the ethnic Albanian population to allow the Serbs to return. They want all remaining non-Albanians to leave – Serbs, Romas, other ethnic groups,” said Ogata.

Kosovo witnessed the most dramatic exodus and the most successful return of the population in 1999. More than 800.000 people who had been forced by the Serb security forces to leave the province, came back immediately after the withdrawal in accordance with the UN Resolution 1244 last June.

According to the UNHCR, the gap that divided Kosovo still remains on Serb side. Under Belgrade’s iron hand, the 10 percent Serb population ruled Kosovo with its 90 percent ethnic Albanian population.

A recent survey of IDPs by the Helsinki Committee of Serbia, showed that 88 percent of Serbs would return to Kosovo, under the condition that “the situation returns to the one that existed before NATO air raids”.

The UNHCR has been engaged in a three-pronged approach towards refugees in Serbia since 1991 – repatriation, local integration and resettlement.

So far, it admits to have found a lasting solution for only 100.000 refugees. The political and economic instability in the region continues to frustrate those processes, UNHCR officials say.

Many refugees, discouraged by the hardships they faced for years in Serbia proper, simply want to leave the country. Dozens queue daily in front of the UNHCR offices in Belgrade while only 15.000 have reportedly been resettled.

Many have similar experiences to a man who agreed to be named only as “Mirko K”. Like many others, he comes from Croatia, from a mixed Serb-Croat marriage. About 15 years ago he married a woman of similar origin.

“Until the war (in 1991) we did not count our blood cells to decide what we were – Serbs or Croats. Now neither of them want us or our children. The only solution is to go abroad, where no one will ask you what nationality you are,” he said.

Mirko K (40) is on a waiting list of 2.600 people who will be resettled in Canada or Australia by the end of the year.