Croatia has invested about 28 billion kuna in a programme for the return of displaced persons and refugees, providing conditions for the construction and reconstruction of housing units and infrastructure, and will invest another two billion kuna this year.
The ministry has successfully reconstructed 142,000 family houses, investing over 16 billion kuna.
A total of 344,000 returnees have been registered since the return process began in 1995, of which 64% are Croats and 36% are Serbs. The return of Croat refugees is mainly complete, except in the wider Vukovar area where reconstruction is still under way.
Last year, 5,478 persons returned to their prewar homes, of whom 18% were displaced persons and 82% were Serbs.
Croatia still has to process about 2,000 displaced persons, mainly from Vukovar, 2,257 refugees, mainly from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 1,736 returnees who returned to their homes in the last six months.
On the occasion of World Refugee Day, Interior Minister Ivica Kirin and Police Chief Marijan Benko visited the Asylum Seekers Centre in Kutina, thus also marking its first anniversary.
Kirin said the centre's good functioning reflected the government's readiness to meet European Union norms and behaviour, announcing that the new law on asylum seekers, currently being debated by parliament, would further contribute to that.
Over the past three years, 457 persons from 44 countries have been accommodated at centres in Kutina, Jezevo and Sasna Greda, including 102 in Kutina in 12 months. Currently there are 16 asylum seekers from Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Pakistan, Kongo and Nigeria.
The centre in Kutina was also visited by the chief of the European Commission Delegation in Croatia, Vincent Degert, and the UNHCR representative in Croatia Wilfried Buchoran.