UNMIK ON AIR

13 January 2004

IDP’s IN MONTENEGRO

(By Zoran Culafic)

The return of internally displaced people is one of the ultimate standards for Kosovo to reach still; estimations about the return process are diametrically opposed, depending from what side they are coming.

Kosovo Albanians claim that significant results have been attained, while Serbs assert that the story about returns is just a dead letter. Yet whatever reasons, in reality, just a small number of returnees have returned to Kosovo.

Hello and welcome and welcome to this edition of UNMIK on Air

According to some estimates, around 15.000 internally displaced persons from Kosovo live today in Montenegro. The majority settled in with their relatives and family members there, while others still live in collective camps with just a symbolic support from the state.

Kosovo’s issue is rarely mentioned amongst political leaders in Montenegro, who rather avoid commenting on it, leaving it to their Belgrade counterparts to deal with.

While waiting for the political leaders to find a solution, the majority of the internally displaced people feel deeply disappointed and absolutely left alone to deal with their cruel reality on their own.

The Popovics are a Kosovo-Serb couple with three young children; they’ve been living since 1999, when they left Belo Polje, in a tiny room in an old summer retreat in Sutomore, a small town by the Adriatic.

Biljana Popovic a Kosovo Serb In her early forties, told us how her health has seriously declined since she left Kosovo.

Biljana Popovic: It’s been like that for almost five years, my leg is trembling. This year I’ve had problems with my thyroid gland, because of the high level of stress and nerves … the worst thing is that sometimes I get so nervous that I could kill my children; I simply do not know what to do …

Biljana’s husband, Slavko says there is no chance at all for them to return to their home in Belo Polje, a village near Pec/Peye; their return, he adds, was supposed to be to the place they left behind but that doesn’t seem to be the case for them.

Slavko Popovic: In that place where I was living there is no chance to rebuild the home. The Kosovo protection corps did build a rifle range just near my home and the Italians have build a military base on my land; so I have nowhere to return.

With no real possibilities of returning to their home, the Popovic family is just hoping to sell their property and start a new life somewhere else. But, they say, last month they received a letter form HPD, refusing their request. Biljana is eager to find a solution for her 18-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter.

Biljana Popovic: I wish there would be a chance for us to sell just a part of our property there, so I could manage to get a roof for my kids, anyway, I wouldn’t dare to take my daughter down there there is no school and to take her from Belo Polje to Gorazdevac; no chance.

In this collective camp in Sutomore there are presently 54 families from Kosovo settled in, which makes around 400 people. But despite the number of family members, every family has got just one room to live in and they been left to deal with their lives as they can.

The fact that children usually adapt themselves easily to new environments is not always the case, Biljana says that her 15-year-old daughter Stojana has not been able to adapt at all to her new life in Sutomore.

Biljana Popovic: They are growing up and I see them everyday suffering because of not being in Kosovo. My son is 18 years old now and the younger one is 15 and she cannot adapt herself at all, she has no friends, I see her often alone, crying.

Despite the fact that now she lives by the seacoast, which is a dream for many girls and boys their age, Stojana told us she doesn’t like the sea. “They say to me, she says, here you have the sea, but I like my Kosovo more”.

And when it comes to education living in a tiny room with brothers and parents does not give her much of a chance for her to study.

Stojana Popovic: Two of us are pupils, the eldest brother has graduated, but my younger brother takes the whole table for himself when he comes back from the school. He lays all his books all around the table and say’s, I have to learn now, so I have to go out into my father’s car when I have to read something for the school or I have to sit on the bed and read while all the others are watching TV, I must learn like that, and really, the conditions are terrible.

The old summer retreat, owned before by an ex-construction company in Sutomore, was turned into a collective camp for internally displaced people from Kosovo in 1999, it’s walls are full of stories similar to that of the Popovic family. As a matter of fact, the majority of IDP’s throughout Serbia and Montenegro live in similar conditions, waiting for politicians to take their issue more seriously.

And that’s all for today from us at UNMIK on Air, thanks for listening and stay tuned for more.