Hotels

In Serbia there are displaced persons and refugees from Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina and Kosovo. Over the years some of these have lived and still reside in collective centres.

In 2002 the Serb Commissioner for refugees, in agreement with UNHCR, launched a programme for closing the collective centres. At that time in Serbia there were 388 collective centres that housed 26,863 people.

In May 2011, nearly ten years later, in Serbia there were still 54 collective centres that housed 4,101 people.

"These centres have existed for many years, many people have died in the collective centres, many others have created families, got married and many children have been born in these places".

From Stefano Piva’s diary, December 2010

According to UNHCR data, in the Kraljevo territory there are 25,227 displaced persons and refugees, of these approximately 400 still live in collective centres located in the area.

The Kraljevo area is the one with the most collective centres in the whole of Serbia.

The life conditions in these centres are extremely difficult, especially in the “non registered” cases.

“During our visits to the centres it emerged that both registered and non-registered centres exist. The latter, because of their status, are non assisted by any NGOs, if not the local ones. The people accommodated there are also under pressure from the institutions to leave the centres without being offered any alternatives”.

From Stefano Piva’s diary, December 2010

There are “non-registered” collective centres in the Kraljevo area. The occupiers live in extremely difficult conditions.

The problem of the “registered” and “non-registered” centres got drammatically worse in the Kraljevo area with the arrival of the displaced persons from Kosovo.

In 1999, year of the war in Kosovo, there were already many collective centres in the Kraljevo area that housed refugees from Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina. The newcomers from Kosovo were often placed in abbandoned “cultural centres” in peripheral villages, which took on the label of “non-registered collective centres".

“Adrani, collective non-registered centre, a single building that must have been a farm once. Three families live there in desperate conditions. There is just one fountain the water of which is obviously cold. Only one of the three families is young and the others are composed of elderly people. The toilets are totally precarious, in a shack”.

From Stefano Piva’s diary, December 2010

A non-registered collective centre, previously a cultural centre, housed 340 displaced persons and refugees in apartments made from partitioned theatre boxes. Due to poor hygiene conditions, including only two external toilets and no drinking water, the number of occupants dwindled to 10 after an earthquake forced the relocation of the others. Institutions are using the lack of water to force the remaining occupants to leave.

"Non-registered collective centre, in a building that used to be a hotel. It houses local people who remained homeless after the earthquake and a refugee. The hygiene conditions are nearly normal as there are toilets, albeit communal ones. As in all the other centres the rooms are small".

From Stefano Piva’s diary, December 2010

According to UNHCR in Kraljevo there are 19,000 displaced persons from Kosovo, who started to arrive in June 1999. Of these 18,500 have found accommodation in private houses, the other 500 (of which 200 minors) found accommodation in collective centres.

The NGOs that, in these past years, have been working with the displaced and refugees in the Kraljevo area have made some recommendations for improving their situation. First of all the local authorities should help these people receive their personal documents in order to fully exercise their political, economic and social rights.

Moreover, NGOs ask the relevant authorities to do whatever they can to guarantee minimal housing conditions to the displaced and refugees, starting from hygiene.

It is also crutial, through the national job centres, to guarantee opportunities for the displaced and refugees, especially when all the family members are unemployed.

Another crutial issue is guaranteeing free legal assistance to the displaced and refugees. They are vulnerable groups that often do not even manage to assert the few rights they are indeed entitled to.

NGOs stress the importance of guaranteeing universal access to basic health services, for example increasing the number of general practitioners and local health surgeries.

NGOs also suggest initiatives in favour of individual or collective return to the places of origin.

At the same time it is important to carry out programmes fostering integration in the local community for those deciding to stay.

"The collective centres have also become a problem (mainly in terms of image) but the institutions are apparently not doing much to try to sort out these situations that have been blocked for some time now. The centres should have been closed back in 2008, but this deadline was first postponed to 2011 and then to 2013".

From Stefano Piva’s diary, December 2010

Pictures by
Stefano Piva
www.stefanopiva.com

Texts from Stefano Piva’s travel log (translated into English by Kaela Venuto) and from the "Report on Respect of Human Rights of IDPs/refugees in Central Serbia for the period between July 2010 – June 2011" edited by the NGO LINGUA