World Refugee Day

World Refugee Day

In Serbia, there are about 70,000 refugees from Croatia, according to UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) researchers and the Serbian Democratic Forum in Croatia.

The biggest problems keeping refugees from returning to their homes are unregulated property rights and work permits, along with the fact that many of their homes have been destroyed.

Others fear being arrested for suspicion of war crimes committed against civilians, and therefore remain in Serbia in order to avoid being arrested by Croatian authorities, officials at a roundtable discussion, held in Belgrade yesterday, said.

About 120,000 refugees from Croatia have since returned, but only about 50,000, mostly older people, continue to live there today.

Every other returnee says that he or she feels safe, while one-third of returnees fear for their safety.

“Serbia makes intensive efforts to integrate refugees”

Serbian Commissioner for Refugees Dragiša Dabetić said today the state is making all possible efforts to integrate refugees into society, at the same time “working to provide them with an opportunity to return to the territories they left”, the government said on its web site.

Dabetić stressed that Serbia is the country with the largest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in Europe, since as many as 100,000 refugees and 209,000 internally displaced persons from Kosovo reside in Serbia.

“Additional 200,000 refugees have acquired Serbian citizenship and have remained in the country,” he said, and pointed out that if this figure was included in the count, the body of refugees and internally displaced persons would then comprise nearly half a million people, or  7.5 percent of the total population.

Speaking on the issue of return, Dabetić said that more than 69,000 people returned to Croatia, and 100,000 to Bosnia-Herzegovina, while more than 30,000 people went to other countries.

“The statistics concerning Kosovo-Metohija vary but it is estimated that 2,000 to 3,000 people returned to the province,” Dabetić said and remarked that this figure was “very small.”

He explained that more than 8,000 people were living in 89 collective centers, of which two thirds were internally displaced persons from Kosovo, while one third were refugees from Bosnia and Croatia.

He said that in 2002 Serbia adopted a national strategy for resolving the issue of refugees and internally displaced persons, and pointed to the fact that until today 25,000 people were provided with housing through various programs.