PRISTINA - As many as 15 years after the Kosovo conflict, there are still no lasting solutions for the return or integration of around 220,000 people displaced outside Kosovo and the 17,000 internally displaced living in Kosovo, shows the latest report of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

According to the report, the number of returnees is declining every year, although Kosovo's ministry for communities and return has undertaken significant measures to help the displaced population.

The OSCE said that, in collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Danish Refugee Council, a survey has been conducted to identify the needs of persons displaced from Kosovo's territory, and that a new strategy for communities and return in 2014-2018 has been adopted as a result.

However, when it comes to providing assistance to displaced persons and returnees, there is no cooperation or coordination among institutions at central and local levels, or among governments in the region, the report said.

There is also the problem of illegal occupation of houses and buildings owned by displaced persons, the OSCE said in the report.

The largest expulsion and migration of Serbs and other non-Albanian population from Kosovo-Metohija took place after the arrival of international forces and the establishment of the UN interim administration following the aggression and the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999.

However, over 4,000 Serbs were driven out in a pogrom by ethnic Albanian extremists on March 17-18, 2004, when 900 Serb-owned houses and flats were torched, with 35 Orthodox churches, monasteries and cultural monuments destroyed as well.

According to figures released by the Serbian government, only 11,000 people have returned to Kosovo-Metohija so far - half of the returnees are Serbs, but just 2.5 percent have managed to stay in the province permanently.

The main obstacles to a sustainable return are a lack of security, freedom and other human rights, the unsolved issue of return of property, the inability to use destroyed or usurped property, as well as difficulties with finding employment.