Djuric: Few returnees in Kosovo-Metohija

SKOPJE - A very small number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) returned to the southern Serbian province in the past 15 years, Director of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija Marko Djuric warned during the two-day regional conference in Skopje.

During the conflicts in Kosovo-Metohija, around 230,000 people were displaced, while 23,000 more Serbs, Roma and other non-Albanians were internally displaced in the province itself. Several thousand IDPs returned to the province until now.

He noted that the return rate in Kosovo-Metohija is even lower than the return rate in some African countries which experienced bloody civil conflicts. Djuric announced that the Serbian government will increase the funds for return of IDPs to Kosovo-Metohija in the year to come.

He underscored that repair of the consequences of conflicts and essential normalisation of the Belgrade-Pristina relations is not possible unless the problem of IDPs is solved first, and called for a radical U-turn in the search for a solution to this issue.

Kosovo Minister for Communities and Return Dalibor Jevtic qualified as devastating the fact that less than 10 percent of IDPs have so far returned to Kosovo-Metohija, while less than a half of them managed to stay there.

He noted that the main obstacles to ensuring sustainable return lie in lack of safety, unsolved issue of property restoration, inability to use destroyed and usurped property, aggravated employment terms, shortage of funds for reconstruction and refurbishment of houses and flats.

Director of the Montenegrin Bureau for Care for Refugees Zeljko Sofranac stated that 3,000 IDPs returned to Kosovo from Montenegro by 2005, but then standstill occurred until 2012....