How to Get 2.5 Million Refugees Back Home?
With 'Safety and Dignity' Says Host of Oslo Meet
(OSLO, March 8—Reuters) The United Nations refugee agency held one-day talks on Friday on the daunting task of returning or resettling about 2.5 million displaced Bosnians in former Yugoslavia and abroad. Some 250 representatives of 70 governments and organizations were in Oslo for the talks under the leadership of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which under the Dayton peace accord will manage the handling of the refugees."The time has now come to try to repair some of the evil results of war," Norwegian Local Government Minister Gunnar Berge, host of the meeting, said in a keynote speech. "I think we all agree that the best durable solution to any refugee problem is repatriation in safety and dignity," he said.
Berge said the purpose of the meeting was to review a repatriation plan drawn up by the UNHCR in Geneva in January for people displaced by the conflict in Bosnia. "Most refugees want to return," he told reporters. "This process should start as soon as possible because it is important for the reconstruction of Bosnia to be able to draw on the resource that the refugees are representing."
Delegates would also continue consultations on temporary protection for the victims of the conflict.
The UNHCR has detailed plans for the repatriation or resettlement of Bosnians displaced by war since 1992, but has conceded that many victims of the conflict will never be able to reclaim their pre-war homes.
The Oslo meeting, chaired by Deputy High Commissioner Sergio de Mello and Norwegian junior foreign minister Jan Egeland, was expected to discuss a joint approach by governments to the repatriation problem.
Early Homecoming Could Undermine Peace
In Stockholm on Thursday, a U.N. official said the premature return of displaced Bosnians could destabilise the fragile peace in the region. Soren Jessen-Petersen, special envoy to Bosnia of the UNHCR, called for restraint among states hoping to repatriate Bosnians in the near future, singling out Germany for a special plea.Germany decided in January to start sending back its 320,000 Bosnian refugees from July, ignoring a call from the UNHCR that it was premature to set a firm date for their repatriation. Delegation sources said German participants at the talks in Oslo, held behind closed doors, confirmed the plan to start returning childless refugees from July.
The UNHCR will initially concentrate on a million people displaced within Bosnia itself, followed by about 670,000 in neighboring ex-Yugoslav republics. Finally, It will organize the repatriation of around 700,000 Bosnians elsewhere in Europe. An estimated 40,000 have already returned home or resettled, with or without UNHCR help, and the agency reckons that around 830,000 Bosnians, most of them internally displaced, will return home or find new housing this year.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
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