UNMIK/PR/831
Tuesday, 24 September 2002

SRSG visits to returns sites Gnjilane / Gjilan

SRSG Michael Steiner today visited to returns projects in the Gnjilane/Gjilan area where displaced people are not only rebuilding houses but also benefiting from income-generating projects and other forms of support designed to make their return home sustainable.

In Stara Kolonija, a former mining town. in Novo Brdo municipality, work is underway to return 23 displaced families-18 Serb and five Albanians. Project implementers have established a bakery, coffee-roasting shop and two chicken farms as income-generating projects.

Also in Gnjilan municipality, returns of 33 Kosovo Serb families along with 10 Kosovo Albanian families are being completed in two neighboring villages-Donje and Gornji Makresh.

Here, donors are assisting income generation with a small shop and farms, while KFOR has reconstructed (with the American Refugee Committee) a small health clinic and school/community center. Two additional houses were rebuilt under UNDP auspices by Kosovo Serb and Albanian youths.

In both locations visited by the SRSG, UNMIK and donors have worked with the entire local community from the design through implementation stages.

Returns are being planned and supported locally, through UNMIK's Municipal and Regional Working Groups involving municipalities, UNHCR, NGOs and KFOR.

UNMIK's Office of Returns and Communities has designed such projects to be implemented 'from the bottom up,' with planning conducted at the local level and with support from the relevant municipalities.

"These small but substantial returns projects demonstrate that the 'bottom-up' approach works and can be truly multiethnic," said SRSG Michael Steiner, adding that he was grateful for the generous support from the US Government, UNHCR, UNDP and KFOR.