Here is a story from Reuters (but written by the UNHCR, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) about a family driven from their home in what is now Bosnia and still living as refugees in Serbia. It made me think of the Gaza situation.
There are no family photos, no paintings, no book collection, no heirlooms – no possessions recalling their former lives in their hometown of Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“We didn’t take anything with us because we didn’t have time. We had to run for our lives. The only thing that comes to mind in such a situation is to save your children and your own life,” says Miljo. “You don’t think about the photographs, you don’t think about personal documents, clothes, whatever.”
Miljo, his wife Milica, son Milutin and daughter Stanislava are refugees, forced to flee Tuzla in 1992. All they have as proof of their past and their identity is a refugee card. Their belongings were left behind as Miljo and his wife, clutching their then infant children, rushed to escape.
More than half-a-million civilians fled to Serbia from Bosnia and Herzegovina and from Croatia in the 1990s conflicts. Considerable success has been achieved on local integration, with over 200,000 former refugees now holding Serbian citizenship. But some 96,000 refugees remain – the remnants of Europe’s largest protracted refugee situation. Many live in desperate conditions and face a bleak future.
The article never tells us why they fled, but I am guessing they are not Muslims. Bosnia today is a majority Muslim country and if they were Muslims I don’t know why they would fear going home, but they do.
Miljo and Milica thought about going back to Tuzla, but their old home had been trashed and looted and they did not feel safe. They considered selling the property, but they would never make enough from the sale to build a new place. What’s more, their children had grown used to Serbia. So repatriation is not an option; nor is resettlement.
That leaves local integration. But taking Serbian nationality will not guarantee them employment or a new house, while the cash-strapped government cannot afford to give too much under its social welfare programmes. So they are holding onto their refugee cards, which entitle them to basic medical care and occasional humanitarian assistance from UNHCR and its partners.
This made me think of Gaza and the perpetual refugee status of the Arabs (Palestinians) for generations who never have to fear they will not be taken care of by the international community through another UN agency, UNRWA.
But Miljo and Milica are aware that one day their refugee status will be revoked because they are no longer deemed to be in danger and the root causes of the Balkan refugee problem have almost ceased to exist. That won’t end the problem of finding employment and paying for food, rent and medical bills at a time when they will be near retirement age.
According to this report, the UNHCR, is trying to figure out how to find a solution for the “protracted refugee situations” not only in Europe but throughout the world.
The UN refugee agency has recently put renewed stress on finding solutions to protracted refugee situations, which account for some 6 million people worldwide who have been in exile for at least five years – many of them for decades. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said last month that political will was a main precondition for finding durable solutions.
How about if the UNHCR gets off the dime and tells the UNRWA to do the same!
Endnote: We brought over 100,000 Bosnian Muslims (the next largest group of Muslims was the Somalis at 80,000) to the US in the wake of Bill Clinton’s Bosnian War. That is what makes me think Miljo and Milica are not Muslims, if they had been they would be here now.