The opening closed down two collective centers. The new buildings are now home to persons who lived collectively under strenuous conditions and years of displacement.

In support of the initiative, UNHCR distributed initial assistance to welcome the residents into their new homes.

But the asylum-seeker has never given up in his determination to become a Bosnian citizen, like his parents and siblings, and his persistence is paying off. After consistent efforts by Nuqi and UNHCR, the Bosnian government recently granted temporary residence to the 35-year-old and his children, based on his ownership of property in Sarajevo.

This means he can legally reside in the country, but must reapply every year for temporary residence, which does not entitle him to basic rights such as health care and financial support. After three years he can apply for Bosnian citizenship and all the many rights that go with it.

Nuqi’s success is an exception, but Bosnia’s Citizenship Law is under review and UNHCR hopes that hundreds of other vulnerable families could soon reap the benefits and be granted citizenship of the country, which was torn by conflict in the 1990s amid the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

His family hailed from Djakova in western Kosovo, but they moved to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, when he was a child. He had a happy upbringing in the hill-circled city, though he was never registered as a resident like other members of his family.

In 1992, all-out conflict returned to the Balkans for the first time since World War II and Nuqi fled to Kosovo with his mother and several siblings. The rest of his family remained in Sarajevo, where Nuqi’s uncle was killed in the fighting.

But a few years later Kosovo was also embroiled in violence and persecution, which only ended with the March-June 1999 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) bombing campaign against Yugoslav government targets. Forced by paramilitary fighters to leave their home, Nuqi and his family headed back to Bosnia, where he was granted temporary admission status, like other Roma fleeing from Kosovo. It gave them access to aid, shelter, education and health care.

He moved to join his family in a Roma settlement in Sarajevo, where he has lived ever since and invested in property. He earns a good living from collecting and selling waste material.

But uncertainty returned to Nuqi’s life in 2007, when he faced being sent back to Kosovo – his last place of registered residence – and separation from his family, after the government revoked his temporary admission status. In 2009, he applied for asylum, but this was rejected and he filed an appeal with the help of UNHCR.

“I have no one in Kosovo. My parents, siblings and relatives are all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Six of my [nine] children were born here, they go to school here. I built my house with my own hands and have always abided by the law,” Nuqi told UNHCR. “All I have ever wanted was to be recognized as a citizen of this country,” he added.

He faced an uphill battle challenging the government’s ruling because, like other Roma in a similiar situation, he was not a resident of a reception centre for asylum-seekers and thus ineligible for legal or financial support from the government. Moreover, he was also legally barred from employment, though this was essential to support his family.

But Nuqi was determined and, even though illiterate and unable to read them, he spent time, effort and money on collecting and filing documents to back his case to remain in Bosnia and gain citizenship and to show that he was a good, law-abiding member of society who deserved this recognition.

He was supported in his efforts by UNHCR and the Council of Europe, whose Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg met Muqishta a year ago and called on the Bosnian government to do more to find durable solutions for the forcibly displaced, including local integration.

“Particular attention should be paid to Roma who have been forcibly displaced from Kosovo and have lived, for many years, with their families in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Return is not a real option for these people. They are still in need of international protection,” the Swedish humanitarian said.

The signs for change are good. In Belgrade earlier this month, the governments of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia gave their firm support to a work plan setting out concrete steps for removing all obstacles to a durable solution for the remaining refugees from the Balkans conflict of 1991-1995. These include the accelerated provision of civil documentation allowing people to enjoy their rights and resume normal lives.

In Bosnia, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has started drafting proposed amendments to the Citizenship Law, which will make it easier for refugees and the stateless to get nationality.

Naveed Hussain, UNHCR’s former representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said he was optimistic that the law would help to improve the lives of many who face renewed displacement despite having long-term residence and strong family ties to Bosnia . “Mr Nuqi and people in his position should be able to become Bosnian citizens and stay here permanently,” he stressed.

By Eoin Ansbro and Miradije Hodža in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Source: UNHCR.org

Lena stands outside her new home, holding the photo of her and Mara with Angelina Jolie.
ROGATICA, Bosnia and Herzegovina, November 15 (UNHCR) – In April last year, Lena Babic had her photograph taken with Hollywood star Angelina Jolie in the dilapidated building where she had lived in exile for years.

Thanks to the generosity of donors who saw this moving image in the world’s press, the 78-year-old and her sister Mara, aged 73, were able to move into a modern apartment in a new housing block earlier this month.

“It feels like a dream,” said the petite Lena, smiling and clutching the precious photographic souvenir of the UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador’s visit outside the building, which was constructed with funds from the United States.

“We were surprised to have any visitors that Easter. For years, we’ve spent all holidays alone – like it was just another day,” she recalled. “Who would have known that day – that moment – would change the rest of our lives?”

This was a welcome change from the upheaval that Lena, Mara and tens of thousands of other innocent civilians had suffered during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Two sisters fled from their village in Gorazde municipality in 1992 and made their way to Serbia. They came to Rogatica in 1996 and eventually ended up living in the collective centre. Most of the inhabitants of the old building – a former school-turned-library – were elderly and unable to return to their pre-war homes.

Eleven other people moved into the new apartment block at the same time as Lena and Mara. Their furnished apartments have all the things that were missing in their old home – warmth, regular electricity and running water as well as ovens, fridges and washing machines.

The new residents were clearly delighted, and grateful to Jolie for putting a spotlight on their plight when she visited last year with her partner, actor Brad Pitt. They have tenure for life, but the municipality owns the building.

The US State Department donated US$500,000 to construct the new home and allow for the closure of the collective centre, one of around 150 still being used to house the displaced in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the government seeks solutions for some 113,000 uprooted Bosnians and 7,000 refugees from Croatia. Some 8,600 of the Bosnians remain in collective centres.

Last year, the Bosnian authorities launched a strategy to end the country’s displacement chapter. The opening of the new building will help achieve that goal.

“We must stay focused on the urgent needs of this vulnerable group and work together to find pragmatic solutions, like this one, to give people a future that is long overdue,” said Andrew Mayne, UNHCR’s acting representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

US Ambassador Patrick Moon led the opening ceremony on a chilly late Autumn day along with representatives of other organizations that supported the venture, including Rogatica Municipality, the Republika Srpska Ministry for Refugees and Displaced Persons, and Hilfswerk Austria.

After receiving the keys to her new home, Lena concluded, “It’s like a fairy tale.”

By Mina Jasarevic and Scott Pohl in Rogatica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Source: UNHCR.org

13.11.2011
Focusing on the plights of those still living in collective centres

Sixteen years after the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina some 8600 people – mainly Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) – still live in collective centres scattered throughout the country, where basic living conditions remain extremely difficult. “This is a situation that must be resolved” Director for the Western Balkans at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enlargement, Pierre Mirel, and UNHCR BiH Representative, Andrew Mayne, stressed when they visited collective centres in East Sarajevo and Gladno Polje near Rakovica on 14 November.

“It is unacceptable that people are still living in these conditions,” Mirel said. “We will definitely continue to pressure the local authorities to take action through local and regional projects that provide better living conditions for these people.”,

Residents of the collective centres live in poverty and face many problems –poor and mostly inadequate accommodation, limited employment prospects, limited access to healthcare and to social security. Support provided by the local authorities is, in most cases, insufficient.

C.K. lives in the collective centre in East Sarajevo. She occupies two rooms with four more family members, two of them children. Her daughter is unemployed. The whole family survives on less than 400 KM a month which is not enough to provide for food and pay the bills. Their pre-war home in Trnovo was completely destroyed and has not been rebuilt.

K.F. from Gacko lives in similar conditions. During the war he was wounded twice and spent a month and a half, by his own account, as a prisoner in a concentration camp. He is 75 percent invalid and his four-member family (including two young children) lives on 230 KM disability benefit in a house where the roof leaks.

The collective centre visit comes within the context of a continuing joint effort with the BiH authorities to find durable solutions for refugees and IDPs and other vulnerable citizens living in these centres, Mayne said. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro have now all formally undertaken to address this issue.

“The BiH government will host an international donor conference in Sarajevo in April next year with support of the EU and UNHCR and the countries of the region,” Mirel explained. “Programmes to build accommodation and programmes to improve living conditions for these people will be studied in detail. However I want to stress that we are not going to wait until April in order to take concrete action. We have already started identifying locations where permanent accommodation can be built, and after the conference, when we have secured funding, construction will begin.”

A Joint regional Programme for providing durable solutions for 75,000 people is projected to cost around 500 million Euros. In parallel, the BiH authorities are working on a loan application to the Council of Europe Development Bank. The two projects, taken together, should lead to durable housing solutions for the most vulnerable IDPs, refugees and returnees in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Source: Delegation of EU to Bosnia-Herzegovina