REFUGEES AND DISPLACED PERSONS RENT FLATS IN CENTRAL CROATIA

( Editorial: --> 0715 ) PETRINJA, April 30 (Hina) - The Agency for Facilitating Real Estate Transactions (APN) Thursday rented 74 houses in central Croatia to refugees from Bosnia and Croatian war victims. The houses in the central Croatian area liberated in 1995 were bought by the APN from local Serbs and rented to 44 families expelled from Bosnia-Herzegovina, and 30 families of Croatian war victims. The houses were rented in the towns of Petrinja, Glina, Hrvatska Kostajnica and the nearby village of Donji Kukuruzari. By signing the contracts, the displaced acquired the right to use the houses pending a final decision on whether they want to return to Bosnia or stay in Croatia for good. APN director Ivica Vrkic told the lessees from now on no one would bother them in the rented houses which up to now they occupied on the basis of clearance given by the Croatian Ministry of Reconstruction and Development. The APN has purchased 976 houses to date, more than a half of which in eastern Croatia and the Banovina area, said Vrkic. The agency has also mediated in the purchase of further 131 houses, he added. According to National Trust Establishment Committee chairwoman Vesna Skare-Ozbolt, who was present at the contract signing, the renting of the houses marked the end of tension between former owners and those who were occupying the houses, as former owners had finally sold the houses. Croatian policy will assist all who want to return to Bosnia, but will also care for those who decide to stay in Croatia, Skare-Ozbolt said. Speaking to reporters, some displaced Croats from Bosanska Posavina, an area in northern Bosnia on the border with Croatia, who today signed the contracts said they did not want to return to Bosnia because of the horrors of war they had been through and the Dayton peace agreement solutions which, they said, guaranteed statehood to Serbs in Bosnia. The lessees will pay a symbolic rent of US$15 a month. (hina) ha jn 302232 MET apr 98