CROATIAN GOVERNMENT OFFICE AND UNTAES ORGANISING REFUGEE RETURNS

ZAGREB, June 5 (Hina) - One hundred and forty-three Croatian displaced persons are to return to their homes in Ilok and Baranja in eastern Croatia in the coming days under an agreement signed by the Croatian government, the UN Transitional Administration (UNTAES) and the chief UN refugee agency, the head of the Croatian government office for refugees and displaced persons, Lovro Pejkovic, said on Thursday. Pejkovic said that UNTAES had reported that the displaced persons could move into 46 houses UNTAES troops would be securing until their return. He added that his office was currently sending certificates to those people on the basis of which they would return. The government office had recently forwarded to UNTAES about 300 requests for return to the Croatian Danube region. The requests had been filed mostly by those displaced persons who could return immediately because their houses were undamaged and vacant or they had relatives living in the region, Pejkovic explained. He added that the requests had also been submitted by public company workers and people employed in the newly-elected local government bodies who should begin working in the region as soon as possible. The office for refugees and displaced persons has so far received about 15,000 requests by displaced families for the reconstruction of housing in the Danube region. Pejkovic said that about 1,000 displaced people were virtually already residing there on the basis of permission for sponsored visits regularly extended by UNTAES. UNTAES spokesman Philip Arnold told UNTAES radio on Wednesday that several Croatian families would soon return to the UN-administered region. He added that 13 persons from the regions should return to their homes in the Karlovac area on Thursday. The Croatian government branch office in the Danube region had so far registered about 4,700 families who had fled other parts of Croatia, of whom about 60 per cent had expressed their desire to return to their original homes, Arnold said. (hina) vm jn 051332 MET jun 97