Host of Problems Impede Return of Internally Displaced Persons in Kosovo

18/07/2005

Internally displaced persons in Kosovo continue to face major problems impeding their return to their pre-conflict homes, a UN envoy said after visiting the region.

(UN News Centre, UN Office at Geneva - 24/06/05; Refugees International - 15/06/05; BBC - 13/06/05)

Earlier this month, both the BBC and Refugees International reported on hundreds of Roma --many of them children -- living in refugee camps in Kosovo. [AFP]

While the situation in Kosovo appears to have improved, the number of minority returns remains very low, the UN Secretary General's Representative on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) said Friday (24 June) following a visit to the region.

During his three-day tour of Kosovo, Walter Kalin was told that there had been fewer interethnic incidents over the past few months. But IDPs and returnees said they were still concerned about their own safety. One reason they cited was persistent low-level harassment. Other major problems include curtailed freedom of movement, lack of employment opportunities and insufficient funding, according to the UN representative.

"Particularly deplorable is the fact that considerable numbers of IDPs are forced to continue their dismal lives in camps and elsewhere because there is no donor money available to implement their return," a statement issued by the UN Office at Geneva (UNOG) quoted Kalin as saying.

Urging Kosovo's provisional institutions and UNMIK to address these problems, Kalin expressed concern that none of them had a clear-cut responsibility for the IDPs. As a result, many were "largely neglected," Kalin said, stressing that the activities of the relevant authorities have been focused exclusively on refugee returns and not on those still living as IDPs in Kosovo. "This is especially true for Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian IDPs who together with the other non-Serb minorities feel caught between the two main ethnic communities in Kosovo," the UNOG statement said.

Kalin further appealed to the international community to take urgent action to evacuate scores of Roma people affected by lead poisoning in camps in northern Mitrovica. "This situation is an emergency," he said. "A failure to act now would amount to a violation of the right of the affected children to have their health and physical integrity protected."

Earlier this month, the BBC and Refugees International (RI) reported on the case of hundreds of Roma living in refugee camps in Kosovo, in the vicinity of a lead smelter in Mitrovica. Although the facility is no longer in use, the area is likely contaminated with extremely high levels of poisonous lead.

The Office of the UNHCR reportedly set up the makeshift camps in 1999 as a temporary shelter for Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian IDPs who fled their homes in southern Mitrovica. Although the initial intentions were for the displaced people to spend no more than 90 days in the wooden huts, they have not been moved.

Zitkovac, one of three camps in the area, is said to be the worst affected. Containing mostly children, its wooden huts are close to the old smelter and within several hundred metres of a toxic slag heap, the BBC reported.

According to WHO, which describes the situation as an environmental disaster, at least one child has died from lead poisoning.

"Children between birth and six years old are the most vulnerable as they are in the primary stages of growth and development," the RI said in a report. "Lead poisoning affects the entire body and has severe and permanent health consequences … According to the WHO reports, the most significant and irreversible effect is on IQ levels."

UNMIK officials told the BBC earlier this month that the Roma had been offered temporary accommodation in less contaminated areas but had refused it.