Kosovo Serbs Return to Foreign Country

Vukosava Mitrovic is getting ready to celebrate her 68th birthday in her old house in Pristina, to which she has returned after five years spent as a refugee in south-east Serbia.

“I felt my heart would explode from excitement when I saw Kosovo again,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “I knew that I would rest in peace if I spent my old age and died here.”

Vukosava and her retired economist husband Dragoljub are pioneers. They are among a small party of Serbs who are the first to take part in an organised return to the capital of Kosovo since the 1999 conflict resulted in thousands of Serbs fleeing north.

The Danish Refugee Council and the United Methodist Committee for Relief, UMCOR, are managing the programme.

A third member of the party is the Mitrovic’s close friend, Dobrila Milic, a 70-year-old Serbian language teacher.

Milic expects to return to her former apartment in the suburb of Dardania in the spring, when the Albanian family that has been living there will have to leave.

They want to stay but have been ordered out by the UN established Housing and Property Directorate in Kosovo, HPD.

The return of such a tiny group is a drop in the ocean. When Serbian troops withdrew from Kosovo in June 1999 after the end of the NATO conflict, about 130,000 Serbs left, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR. Of those who lived in Pristina, less than 300 remain.

The UN Mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, has made it one of their goals to persuade Serbs who left in 1999 to return.

But few have obliged, fearing life in a region that is no longer under Serbian control, where the few remaining Serbs face death threats and hostility from the Albanian majority.

When the Mitrovics returned to their house in central Pristina they found their street had been symbolically renamed. Once called after a Serb hero of the Second World War, it has now been given the name of a 19th century Albanian rebel.

When they last lived in the street, Serbs owned most of the houses. Now Albanian families own all but two.

For Dragloljub the change is a shock. “The neighbours are all new people,” he said. “And all the single-storey houses have been turned into houses with several floors”.

But the new returnees are too delighted by the prospect of going home to voice criticism of the changes in their old neighbourhood.

“The only Albanian neighbour whom we knew from before came to wish us welcome,” said Vukosava. “The other neighbours are new but that is how it is. We just hope they will accept us, too.”

Vukosava has been busy since her return putting up new curtains, cleaning the windows and arranging the basic new furniture they received from the Danish Refugee Council, as thieves stole their old furniture.

Her biggest regret is that her children and grandchildren will not be there to mark her 68th birthday.

Even if most concerns over personal security and property are solved and overcome, the bulk of Serb refugees are unlikely to return to Kosovo.

The couple’s 40-year old son went back to Belgrade after spending only four days in his old hometown helping his parents to settle in.

“Our grandchildren have to go to school and don’t speak Albanian,” Dragoljub said. “There is no school in Pristina they can attend in their language.”

The couple know it is unrealistic to expect their children or other relatives to come back. But they had found life unbearable as displaced persons in one room in a barracks in Vrnjacka Banja, central Serbia.

Conditions were dismal and they still had to pay some rent out of their modest pension.

During their first week back in Pristina, the Mitrovics have been living off flour, oil and basic foods they got as humanitarian aid. They have not been to any shops because they have no euro, which is the currency used now in Kosovo. Their pension of 130 euro a month is in Serbian dinars.

However, Dobrila Milic, another Serb returnee, who is living with them temporarily, has visited some of the shops on an evening stroll, where she bought groceries.

“When I spoke some basic Albanian the shop keepers asked if I was one of the returnees they had read about in the papers,” she said. “They were helpful and explained where I can buy groceries safely.”

Not all Serbs who have tried to come back have fared so well. When 11 middle-aged returnees tried to go back to Klina, in western Kosovo, two months ago, local Albanians threw stones and the families occupying their houses refused to leave.

The group had to move on to a neighbouring Serbian village, called Bica, where they await the release of their houses in Klina.

The Mitrovics and their friend Dobrila hope their own return will be less traumatic. “As long as we are not attacked and are not totally isolated, as if we were in jail, we will stay,” said Dragoljub .

“We have no problem with the fact that we have to share our life here with Albanians – that is a reality we accept.”

The next item on their agenda is a visit to the local municipal offices to register as citizens of Kosovo.

Then they will obtain Kosovo UNMIK IDs and throw away the IDs they have held for past five years as displaced persons in Serbia.

Tanja Matic is IWPR Kosovo project coordinator and Olivera Stojanovic is an IWPR contributor.