Regional Update, 5 – 11 February 05 MITROVICA REGION Mitrovica/e Municipal Working Group (MWG) attracted a large · DRC has drafted concept papers number of participants including the Municipal Vice President, for returns of 260 Roma displaced representatives of Albanians displaced from the North to South families to Roma Mahala Mitrovica, and a Roma representative from Zitkovac Camp. DRC gave (Mitrovica/e) and multi-ethnic an outline of its forthcoming concept paper for Phase II of the return returns of 42 families to Rudnik project to Roma Mahala. The aim of Phase II is the sustainable return (Skenderaj/Srbica). for a total of 260 Roma families currently displaced in Northern Kosovo and Serbia on land granted by the municipality. Sixty families will be identified as a priority to return first. The timeframe for Phase II will be 12 months. Potential donors have been identified as the Kosovo Consolidated Budget, the Norwegian government and EAR. Representatives from the Association of Albanians from North Mitrovica complained that it has been now almost 5 years since they have been displaced from their homes. UN Municipal Representative (MR) agreed that the question of Albanian return to the North was raised in almost every meeting he had with Municipal President and Vice-President. Although there are two administrations in Mitrovica/e there is contact between them, and as a result, he maintained, these parallel structures are becoming weaker, and the Kosovan structures stronger. The Department of Urbanism gave an update on reconstruction in Svinjare. Reconstruction of a total of 139 houses is almost complete except for seven on which construction work has stopped for a variety of reasons. Skenderaj/Srbica MWG convened on 10 February. Municipal Returns Officer informed that the planned ‘Go and See’ Visit to Leoqine/Leocina had had to be postponed due to the bad weather. As soon as the weather conditions improve it will take place. He also briefed on a visit to Plementina camp (Obilic/q) to inform 27 Ashkali IDP families from Dashec about the Municipal Returns Strategy (MRS) in Skenderaj/Srbica Municipality and specific projects related to the village. The IDPs are still anxious for security concerns to be addressed before they consider return. Some of them say they would prefer to ‘find solutions’ either in Obiliq/c or Fushe Kosove/Kosovo Polje municipalities. DRC presented its Draft Concept Paper for the Return of 32 Serb IDP families and 10 Albanian IDP families to Rudnik/Runik. The draft focuses on six steps: (i) community dialogue (ii) rehabilitation (iii) infrastructure (iv) social services (v) income generation, and (vi) integration. All IDPs contacted have expressed interest in returning. The project will be submitted to GAR for possible funding. The Regional Working Group took place on 8 February. The A/RR opened the meeting with some positive remarks including the fact that there were now 4 Municipal Returns Officers in place in the Northern Municipalities and that Municipal Returns Strategies had been endorsed in Skenderaj/Srbica and Vushtrri/Vucitrn. He also mentioned the importance of community policing projects, which have started in Svinjare and the Ashkali quarter of Vushtrri/Vucitrn, which it is hoped will help to engender more confidence amongst returnee communities. Principal Deputy/SRSG Larry Rossin and Senior Advisor on Minorities visited Mitrovica, as well as the Head of UNHCR in Europe. These visits show that the issue of the health conditions in the Roma camps is being acknowledged and discussed at the highest levels. A/MR Zvecan reported that she had met with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and informed him that realistically not many of the 3500 IDPs from 1999 in the Zvecan municipality will go home any time soon. Therefore, it was imperative to develop a long-term strategy for looking after them. Contact: Alex Melbourne (038)504604/ ext.7353, e-mail: [email protected] Office of Returns and Communities (ORC) UN Office Belgrade. Tel: +381 (0) 11 36 74 003 (ext 8616) Fax: +381 011 36 74 001, E-mail: [email protected] 5 PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com.