Some return, some do not: refugees and IDPs in Macedonia

30 December 2002

Three years ago, the whole of Macedonia seemed a huge refugee camp. Back then, over 350,000 refugees from Kosovo flooded Macedonia, which was, of course, totally unprepared for such a great number. However, the Serb forces (and allegedly the NATO bombs) managed to convince the Kosovo Albanians that the province is not the best place to live in during the 79 days of NATO�s war with Yugoslavia. After much contemplation, negotiations, and some very practical arm-wringing by the international community, the Government of Macedonia decided to accept the refugees.

The fears of the Government were understandable, in spite of being rather objectionable. First of all, the previous experiences with refugees in the Balkans, in Bosnia and Croatia, did not illustrate either a willingness to return on the side of the refugees, nor were the people that �ethnically cleansed� them in the first place eager to enable them to return to their homes. That is especially true for Croatia where, in the words of Goran Momirovski, the Spokesperson of the UNHCR�s Office in Skopje, the return and repatriation efforts are almost nonexistent. So, in the view of the Government (which was then headed by the nationalist, right of centre VMRO-DPMNE), there was a real danger of creating a tectonic wave in the subtle interethnic balance existing in Macedonia. That number of refugees represented full 15% of the total Macedonian population. Then Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, standing between the anvil of the public opinion in Macedonia, especially among the Macedonians, and the hammer of the international pressure, said to the media that �if the Swedish (it was the writing of the Swedish media that provoked his reaction) love them (the Albanians) so much, they can always send the planes and we will give them all.

The whole issue was finally settled, the international community committed funds and later even accepted a number of refugees, and the refugees were moved from the inhuman conditions on the no-mans land patch at the Blace border crossing, and transported to the four camps: Stenkovec 1 and 2, Neprosteno and Cegrane. Those with enough hard currency on hand, as well as people who had friends and contacts in the Government�s Democratic Party of the Albanians, managed to avoid the hell of the camps and to either settle with friends of rent apartments at sometimes exorbitant prices. As it goes, some refugees are more equal than others.

Nevertheless, just months later, in unprecedented fashion, all Kosovo Albanians expelled from their homes returned to Kosovo. Macedonia survived.

However, their return home, lamentably enough, meant that some other people will have to take the turn and hit the road. As the Albanians unleashed a revenge campaign, approximately 200,000 Serbs and other minorities had to flee from Kosovo. Among them, some 5,000 Roma from Kosovo. The number is cumulative, since the Kosovo Roma population is divided into several self-styled ethnicities (Askali � Roma speaking Albanian, Roma speaking Serbian � known by their more generic name Tsigani, and the strangest of all, the Egyptians, the Roma that claim they are direct descendants of the Ancient Egyptians).

Those Roma refugees are the only bona fide refugees that remained in Macedonia. Until such a time, as it is, when they have their dearest wish fulfilled. Now, what that wish may be, the opinions are divided. Mostly, they would like to go back home to Kosovo and continue living there in peace. That is the version and the opinion of the international community (for the better time and, more importantly, for the record). Everybody else, including the refugees themselves, would like to be taken to a third country. As Muarem Gashnjani said in an interview we conducted for this research, �there is little chance for us to return to Kosovo. First, there is the security situation, which is nonexistent, and second, what would we do there? There is no economy, the companies we worked for are closed and there is little possibility for their being restarted.�

Gashnjani stays, at the moment, in the refugee camp Shuto Orizari, next to the Skopje district of the same name. There is another camp, in the village of Katlanovo, some 30 kilometers to the south east of Skopje, on the road to Veles. The two camps host about 2,000 people between themselves, 1,200 in Shuto Orizari and 800 in Katlanovo. The rest to 3,000 (the actual number of all Roma refugees from Kosovo in Macedonia is exactly 3,034 persons of all ages) stay with host families in Skopje, Kumanovo, Gostivar and several other cities in Skopje. The two camps are ran by UNHCR, which provides for the food, the maintenance, the infrastructure, the food and the health coverage. Goran Momirovski from UNHCR says that the conditions are the best they could be, given the overall situation in the country. The refugees, the proper title would be �persons under temporary humanitarian care�, have medical doctor coming to the camp every day, they have a vehicle available at all times to transport the ill to the hospital, and the healthcare system covers them fully.

Gashnjani is from Kosovo Polje. Before the War in Kosovo, he worked for the Electric Power Supply Company of Kosovo, in the �Obilic� power plant. As he says: �no one came at my door in the middle of the night and told me to hit the road. But the whole situation was bad. There have been numerous threats, beatings, arsons of other people�s houses. It all went on and on, in front of the very eyes of KFOR. We protested, but the answer we got from KFOR was that they �were in Kosovo for the Albanians.� One of them told me that �Roma are not our priority at the moment.� I could not wait for Roma to become a priority. I have family and children. We packed and left. Practically everybody left with us.� Gashnjani now works on a book on the subject of Roma and Kosovo throughout history.

His friends quickly jump in. Musli Shakiri, from Glogovac, blames it all on, as he says, �Europe and the international community.� In general, it might be strange to some people that they don�t have the Serbian regime in Kosovo in bad memory. After all, they had jobs, mostly in the public sector, they had a certain standard of living. His greatest complaint is about the living conditions in the camp Shuto Orizari.

�The camp was built� Shakiri says, �on a former garbage dump of the City of Skopje. The area was covered with a thin layer of earth, but it takes one rain and the vapours and pollution are unbearable. One cannot live in such conditions. We have small babies here, we have very old people and they have already lost their natural immunity. The children are almost constantly ill. Another problem is the food. We get substandard rations, made on the estimates that are valid worldwide, and our needs are not the same as the needs of the people in Africa, yet we get the same packages.�

Another common complaint the refugees have is the field of education. Ahmet Muslija, the most outspoken of the group of refugees I met, jumps in here. Muslija is in his early fifties, and is quite eloquent. �Imagine this�, he says. �In this camp of 1,200 people, there are absolutely no children of junior high school age (fifth to eight grade) that go to school. Some 40 percent of the children ages 7 to 10 (first to fourth grade elementary school) go to school. It is the same in Katlanovo. In terms of children staying with host families, situation is only slightly better. The school children have problems with the other students, especially if they go to Albanian speaking schools. They are attacked, harassed, so that their parents refuse to send them to school again. We are in danger of loosing whole generation of young people who will grow up illiterate, without proper education. What shall they do when, and if, they return to Kosovo?� He also speaks about the problems of repatriation and return.

Nevertheless, there are attempts to assist with their education. The Macedonian Italian Solidarity Council (an organization that appeared after the Italian Consortium for Solidarity left Macedonia) organizes knowledge refreshing courses and helps the children with homework and other chores. Last summer, they organized a camp for the refugee children on the Gradistanska Planina (it separates the Skopje Valley from Eastern Macedonia, where the children could relax and play, but also work on the missed material in mathematics, natural sciences and other subjects in the curriculum. Lovren Markic, however, is not very optimistic, reiterating the problems mentioned in the previous paragraph.

�Of course we would like to return to Kosovo. Another problem is, what would we do in Kosovo? What economy is there, is there enough security? Will we be able to go back to our old jobs and earn our living? Nothing operates in Kosovo right now, and God knows if the security situation will improve ever.� He continues, �they would like us to return to Kosovo to make it multiethnic. I doubt that it would ever be multiethnic again... What we would like to see is a possibility to go a third country, where we can be together, where the conditions will be better, and where our children won�t face harassment... Besides, they could have better control over the funds and assistance they provide, and we know that the situation with the corruption is in the Balkans in general.�

�But of course they want to go to third countries. That is all they want, not one of them wants to return to Kosovo,� said to me an assistance worker, who wished to remain anonymous, probably because his position is so politically incorrect.

That might as well be true. As Ahmet Muslija said, �we don�t know how many were shot or arrested while trying to cross illegally into Greece, or if they made it that far, into Germany. In a single incident, when a ship transporting illegal immigrants sank of the coast of Montenegro, 126 Roma refugees from Kosovo drowned.� The refugees I talked to made a quick addition in their heads.

�About 9,000 refugees crossed after the return of the Albanians into Kosovo. We have that number spoken for the record by Government representatives. Later discriminatory decisions (they would not elaborate what kind of discriminatory decision) by the UNHCR lowered that number to about 6,000. Now there are 3,000 left in Macedonia.� The adding up shows that at least 3,000 Roma refugees decided to try their luck and get to the glitter and gold of the rich Western states one way or another. The number of people that returned is disappointing, or as Goran Momirovski of the UNHCR says, �the interest was minimal.�

For the Roma refugees, time is running on a short string. As Momirovski says, their status of persons under humanitarian assistance will end sometimes next spring. After that, each and everyone of them has the right to apply with the proper authorities (in this case the Ministry of the Interior) and seek asylum. Those cases are solved on individual merit. The point is, Momirovski said, that �should they choose to take that path and seek asylum, they can�t return under our protection anymore. If their asylum cases are dismissed as non-valid, they are on their own.� Actually, Momirovski sort of announced that after the case of the refugees is finally solved, UNHCR will stay in Macedonia and will assist the Government in writing a new Law on Asylum (already in preparation).

Momirovski added that for those that return to their homes, namely to Kosovo, UNHCR provides a one time assistance of $200 US per adult member of a family, plus $50 US per each child or minor. �Having in mind that we mostly deal with rather big families here, the amount per family is not insignificant, not at all.�

Another problem for the Kosovo refugees is that the camp located in Shuto Orizari borough of Skopje will soon be dismantled. The lease on the land ends in December of this year, but Goran Momirovski said to the media that they got �one last extension to the Spring 2003.� Nevertheless, that period ends simultaneously with the three year period mentioned in the previous several paragraphs. We will think about it when the time comes.

Macedonia has another big problem, the Internally displaced persons chased away from their homes during the last year conflict. At the beginning of the conflict, there were approximately 200,000 of them, 70,000 that sought refuge in Kosovo (mostly Albanians) and some 125,000 Macedonians who ran to the other parts of the country. Since then, a great number of the IDPs have returned to their homes, with assistance from several international organizations that have engaged in the repairs and reconstruction of their homes.

At first, the reconstruction was coordinated by the Macedonian Centre for International Cooperation (MCIC, www.mcms.org.mk). Later, it was taken over by the International Management Group (IMG). The percentage of the damages for the assessed and the assumed number of houses for each category is the following:
� Category 1 5 - 20% damage on 2.538 houses
� Category 2 20 - 40% damage on 1.455 houses
� Category 3 40 - 60% damage on 802 houses
� Category 4 60 - 100% damage on 613 houses

The cost price of the repair and reconstruction has been basically taken from the IMG estimates, that is, for a ground new construction it is EURO 200/m2. The same cost price in the estimates for the assessed building is multiplied by the ground floor area, then by the stories and by the percentage of the damage, using special purpose forms by which an appropriate value expressed in EURO is calculated, and it should be used to return the house in its original condition. So far, no one is willing to make an assessment of the number of houses that have been repaired, but some 60% per category seems to be close to the factual situation.

Repairs, however, are not the main issue here. For a long time, the problem was that what was once repaired was overnight destroyed again by roaming gangs of extremists, or, should we believe the words of the actual IDPs �by the local Albanians.� That is especially true for the village of Arachinovo, where several houses have been burned to the ground after the reparations, and one person died in an explosion of a booby trap while trying to unlock the main door to his house. The Macedonians from Arachinovo refuse to return to their village, until all proper conditions were fulfilled. However, it would be unlikely that such conditions � reconciliation, safety and security, freedom of movement � would be met anytime in the near future, so much that last Spring, there was talk of establishing a �New Arachinovo� a settlement east of Skopje that would provide temporary shelter to the IDPs from Arachinovo staying at the time in several student dormitories in Skopje. The actual numbers of IDPs that stay in host families and dormitories/collective centres are 6,826 and 2,187, respectively. The total of 9,013 persons remain adamant that they want to return home, but the mistrust, the rising ethnic gap and fear remains.