Refugee return in Croatia is the first case of return of a minority community to their country of origin in Europe since World War II that has yielded positive and measurable results, HCK president Nenad Javornik said.
The number of returnees in Croatia on July 31 this year was 374,347. Of that number, 133,621 returnees were ethnic Croatian Serbs who returned from exile abroad, and 240,726 were internally displaced people, of whom more than 89,000 returned to eastern Slavonia.
A total of 151,424 displaced people - 23,203 Serbs and 128,221 Croats and people of other ethnic background - returned to their homes in other parts of Croatia.
The HCK has been participating in the process of return and providing assistance to returnees since 1995. It has sent mobile teams to visit returnees, carry out the most necessary repair works on their houses, etc, Javornik said.
He went on to say that the Croatian government was a signatory to the Sarajevo declaration on refugee return setting the program and deadlines for all activities regarding return. The return process is expected to be completed by the end of 2006, Javornik said adding that the government would grant an additional 2.3 billion kuna of budgetary funds next year to solve the remaining housing issues, help development programs and create other conditions necessary for the return of 20,000 to 25,000 people wishing to return, Javornik said.
The representative of the UNHCR in Croatia, Jean-Claude Concolato, said that in the last 70 years there had been many conflicts in Europe and other parts of the world resulting in sizeable population displacements, but that none of the conflicts had ended with such a massive return as in Croatia. Ten years after the war in Croatia, 33 percent of the displaced have returned, Concolato said warning that the average age of returnees was 50, while the number of returnees under the age of 19 was very low.
Warning about the returnees' grave financial situation, Concolato said that neither the UNHCR nor the HCK were economic development agencies.
Croatian Parliament Deputy Speaker and HCK vice-president Mato Arlovic warned about the need for the return process to include other former Yugoslav countries and in that context stressed the problem of Croats from the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina and Muslims and Croats from the Bosnian Serb entity.