Children play at a Roma camp near Pristina. Photo: DPA

Germany to send Kosovar refugees home

Published: 14 Oct 09 08:28 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20091014-22555.html

Some 10 years after the Kosovo conflict, thousands of Kosovar refugees – most of them from the Roma community – are set to return home, daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported this week.

According to a parliamentary inquiry by the Left party into the matter, Berlin and Pristina plan to sign an agreement this autumn to send back the refugees, the paper said.

There are reportedly 14,000 Kosovar refugees in Germany, 10,000 of whom are Roma.

The agreement states that Kosovo must take all refugees back that can give proof they once lived in the disputed former Serbian territory. The Interior Ministry has apparently promised Kosovo to process 2,500 applications each year and maintain an “appropriate relationship to different ethnicities,” which implies they will not send only the persecuted Roma refugees home, the paper said.

Last year 900 Kosovar refugees returned to their homes from Germany.

The Left party’s Ulla Jelpke, who filed the inquiry, called the plans a “monstrous project,” adding that the Roma would face “daily alienation” in Kosovo, which has an ethnic Albanian majority.

Early this year the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported a serious threat of poverty and possible ethnic conflicts due to returning refugees and recommended only voluntary trips home.

DDP/The Local (news@thelocal.de)

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Your comments about this article:

10:32 October 14, 2009 by MrNosey
I wonder how many Kosovar refugees are now burning evidence that they once came from that region...
11:34 October 14, 2009 by LeonG
I'm sure the AB keeps copies. There was a couple from Kosovo taking the integration course with me. They said if they can't get jobs giving them a combined income of 1400? a month before the end of the year, they have to go back.
17:22 October 16, 2009 by mixxim
Of course it is much nicer in Germany so they would like to stay here. When they came they were being hounded by Serb bully boys. Now Kosovo is an independent, but poor and corrupt country. One only has to see the cars in Macedonia, the expensive limos are those with Kosovan no. plates. Nevertheless these people are peasants and of no political interest to anyone in their own country, they just wish for a better life here.
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