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Bosnia Minority Refugee/Displaced Persons Returns 2000 Fact sheet released by the Bureau of European Affairs U.S. Department of State, January 10, 2001

The rate of return of ethnic minority refugees/displaced persons (DPs) in Bosnia in the first eleven months of 2000 was sixty-eight percent higher than the same period in 1999.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has compiled statistics for the period January 1-November 30, 2000, that indicate a total of 59,049 refugees/DPs registered their return with authorities in areas in which they are now an ethnic minority. In the comparable period in 1999, 35,162 minorities returned. In November alone, over 7,000 people registered their return, compared to 3,867 in November 1999. It is believed that most November registrations were from refugees/DPs who actually returned during late summer. Of particular note was the relative increase in the proportion of minority returns to the Republika Srpska (RS). Forty percent of the total population movements in 2000 were to the RS (23,922), compared to 33 percent in 1999.

The increase in minority return movements in 2000 may be attributed to continued stable security conditions afforded by the SFOR presence, political moderation in Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), and gradually increasing implementation of the property law in Bosnia. Most refugee/DP return remains to destroyed/abandoned houses in rural areas, however. Urban return is largely blocked by housing illegally occupied by ethnic majority members, oftentimes themselves displaced. The IC-directed property law implementation plan (PLIP) provides for the eviction of illegal squatters so that pre-war (minority) returnees can reclaim their housing. Bosnia-wide, 19 percent of property claims had been resolved (returned to the legal owners) by October 30, a four percent increase since July.

There is a marked asymmetry in PLIP progress between the two entities, however. PLIP resolution rates are twice as high in the Federation (25 percent) as in the RS (11 percent), reflecting lingering political obstructionism in the Serb entity. (Brcko district has a 25% resolution rate.) Two key RS municipalities, Banja Luka and Prijedor, had resolution rates only between 7-8 percent, and most eastern RS municipalities had resolved less than 5 percent of property return claims.

The ethnic balance among minority returnees in 2000 was more balanced than during the first three years after Dayton, when the overwhelming majority of minority returns were Bosniak. In the first eleven months of 2000, 53% of returnees were Bosniak, 28% Serb, and 17% Croat.

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