As Serbia's Doors Open, ARC Urges Donors To Help Its Refugees

American Refugee Committee
Friday, 6 October 2000

As Serbia moved towards a new era on Friday, the American Refugee Committee (ARC) urged donors to step up efforts to help the more than 700,000 refugees and displaced persons who continue to live in dire conditions in Yugoslavia.

"For the past year ARC has been on the inside looking out, just waiting for Serbia's doors to open," said ARC President Anthony Kozlowski. "The recent political developments may be the key to unlocking Serbia's future and drawing the world's attention to the huge number of families who remain uprooted from their homes, separated from their loved ones and deprived of basic necessities and decent housing."

ARC operates a program to provide emergency repairs to collective centers in Belgrade that house refugees -- mostly ethnic Serbs -- who have fled from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia or Kosovo. Thousands of uprooted people are crowded into these rickety centers, forced to share bathrooms, laundry facilities and dining rooms with scores of other families.

"Finally people may understand that Serbs themselves were among the victims of the Balkans wars," said Steve Mayall, ARC country director for Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. "In collective centers, even the simplest things we take for granted don't work."

ARC helps alleviate the frustrations of daily life by repairing boilers, water pipes, faucets, washing machines and other pieces of equipment that are under severe strain from their heavy workload. However, the demand is much greater than the available resources. ARC has been funding this emergency repair program with its own money, but will not be able to continue beyond December 1 without further help.

"We would like to continue this program and to expand it to meet a tremendous need across Serbia," Mayall said. "Many of these collective centers are desperate for help and we are worried about how the refugees living there will make it through the winter."

ARC also operates a program in Serbia to help remove the legal, economic and psychological barriers for refugees who want to return to their home communities, as well as an emergency health project. Both are funded by the U.S. State Department, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

Yugoslavia's two republics, Serbia and Montenegro, host Europe's largest refugee population in the midst of severe economic hardship that has been aggravated by international sanctions. Those sanctions are expected to be lifted because of the change of government.

For more information, or to contact American Refugee Committee, see their website at: www.archq.org