ONLY 58 CROATS AND BOSNIAKS RETURN TO BOSNIAN SERB ENTITY

SARAJEVO, July 24 (Hina) - Refugees belonging to minority ethnic groups have been slowly returning to Bosnia-Herzegovina in the past two years after the Dayton accords were signed. The returnees mostly came back to the (Croat-Moslem) Federation, a UNHCR spokesman, Kris Janowski, said in Sarajevo on Thursday. According to UNHCR estimates, about 700 Croats and Moslems (Bosniaks) returned to the Bosnian Serb entity. Most of such returnees managed to come back within special projects such as the settlement of separation zones along the inter-entity boundary lines, or in Brcko, which is a special case as well. There are few real returnees to other parts of the Serb entity. The UNHCR estimated that only 58 people returned to the Serb- controlled areas, Janowski said. He said only municipal Serb authorities in the northwestern Bosnian town of Sipovo showed some willingness to allow minority ethnic groups' members to return. Janowski recalled there are about half a million displaced persons in BH at the moment, most from the Serb entity. The majority of about 250,000 BH refugees (Croats and Bosniaks) in Germany (according to UNHCR estimates), could not return to their homes because their houses are in Bosnian Serb-controlled territory. Janowski pointed out the situation in the BH Federation does not even come close to being satisfactory, but is still considerably better than in the Bosnian Serb entity, since 15-19,000 members of the minority people did return there. The majority of refugees and displaced persons have returned to the Sarajevo area. According to UNHCR estimates, seven to 12,000 Croats and some 5,000 have returned there in the past two years, mostly people who of their own free will abandoned their homes on the eve of the reintegration of municipalities controlled during the war by Serbs into the BH Federation. (hina) ms ha 241524 MET jul 97