ZUBIN POTOK - Director of the Serbian government’s Office for Kosovo-Metohija (KiM) Marko Djuric said Wednesday that the government had provided funds for the construction of six blocks of flats and several dozen houses in the southern Serbian province to facilitate returns of displaced Serbs and other non-Albanians.

“The construction of the tower blocks and houses is underway and it shows that the Serbian government is working on the return of internally displaced people,” Djuric said in the village of Jagnjenica (Zubin Potok municipality in northern KiM), where he acted on behalf of the Office for KiM and handed the keys to a prefab home to the returnee family Spasojevic.

Djuric pointed out that 247,000 people had been expelled after the international forces entered the province and set up the UN Interim Administration there in June 1999, and only a few thousand people had returned to their homes so far.
“We expect that by building the houses and flats we will encourage returns of refugees and ensure consolidation of the Serbian community in Kosovo-Metohija," he said.

He also said that 70 percent of the expelled and internally displaced persons had no permanent housing or employment and lived in very difficult conditions.
“To ensure the return of refugees to Kosovo-Metohija, we need active support from the international community,” Djuric said, stressing that it was not enough to provide returnees with only shelter, as they also needed a job to be able to sustain themselves.

A few weeks ago, the Serbian government, together with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the provisional institutions in Pristina, the EU and other partners, set up a working group to see this problem start being seriously dealt with and finally solved after 15 years.

Petar Spasojevic said that his family greatly appreciated the move by the government's Office for KiM, as the house meant a lot to them.
“It was my desire to get back to where I was born and grew up,” he said, telling reporters that the family had been living in container settlements.

“When the house gets water and electricity, my family - son, daughter-in-law and grandchild – will come to live here, too,” Spasojevic said.

He said that his family was into agriculture business as they were unable to eke out a living on his small pension, adding that he expected the Serbian government to provide them with machinery to expand and improve production.