$ SARAJEVO, July 29 (Hina) - The return of members of minority ethnic groups is the key to the solution of the refugee problem in Bosnia- Herzegovina, special UNHCR envoy for the former Yugoslavia, Carrol Faubertt, said in Sarajevo on
Tuesday.
- UNHCR
$
SARAJEVO, July 29 (Hina) - The return of members of minority ethnic
groups is the key to the solution of the refugee problem in Bosnia-
Herzegovina, special UNHCR envoy for the former Yugoslavia, Carrol
Faubertt, said in Sarajevo on Tuesday. #L#
Faubertt told a news conference Tuesday that since the signing of
the Dayton Agreement, about 90,000 people had returned to Bosnia-
Herzegovina, who had settled areas where members of their people were in
majority.
Only ten to fifteen thousand had returned to areas of Bosnia in which
members of other peoples were predominant, he said.
The real problem is the return of refugees to those areas in which
they would be a minority, Faubertt said, stressing that this was the exact
fate of almost 70 percent of refugees outside of Bosnia-Herzegovina and 95
percent of displaced persons who had found temporary accommodation in
the country. Out of 1.300,000 refugees, mostly in western Europe, 750,000
had not till this day resolved their status, and would most probably have to
return to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
He stressed that this was especially true for 250,000 refugees which
had found temporary shelter in Germany, and about 240,000 refugees in
Yugoslavia.
According to UNHCR estimates, there were still about 80,000
refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina in Croatia.
Republika Srpska was a special problem, Faubertt said, because the
local authorities did not allow refugees to return, so out of the total number
of refugees, only 5 percent had returned to the area.
Faubert described as unacceptable the situation in parts of the
Bosnian Federation under the Croat authorities, and warned that refugees
and displaced persons from minority ethnic groups had a difficult time in
returning.
(hina) lm mm
291433 MET jul 97