OSCE Mission in Kosovo helps displaced persons maintain minimal housing conditions

"Everyone has forgotten about us," says Olgica Subotic, a 59-year-old Kosovo Serb, who has been living in the ramshackle settlement of Vocar in Gracanica/Gracanice since riots erupted across Kosovo in March 2004.

The settlement, named after the fruit company whose parking lot is now her address, is made up of some 35 military containers serving as makeshift homes. Four beds, a closet, a fridge, a cooking stove and a dining table fill the ten metre-square boxes. Olgica notes that the metal containers have poor insulation and get very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. "Sometimes, in the summer, I sleep next to an open fridge," she says.

Olgica comes from Obiliq/Obilic, just west of Prishtine/Pristina, where she occupied a social housing unit until she was forced to leave following the violent unrest which, according to Amnesty International, led to the expulsion of some 4,450 Kosovo Serbs, Albanians, Roma and Ashkali from their homes. "We were first taken to a local police station for our protection," she recalls. "After that, KFOR [the NATO security force deployed to Kosovo] and the police took us to Gracanica. We were initially placed in a military camp and then some two weeks later they moved us to Vocar."

Olgica has now been living there for more than five years. Her three daughters, who initially lived with her, have since married and left. She stayed because she has nowhere else to go.

Falling through the cracks

Predrag Vasic, Head of the Prishtine/Pristina Municipal Communities Office, explains that the containers were donated by the Russian military to Serbia's commissariat for refugees. Prishtine/Pristina municipality approved the parking lot as a settlement location.

"The containers are formally the property of the Serbian commissariat for refugees, so the municipality does not have the right to manage them," says Predrag. "On the other hand, the commissariat for refugees does not recognize nor co-operate with Kosovo institutions, including the police and courts and therefore, if there are any issues to be addressed in the settlement they have no legal mechanisms to remedy them."

Predrag notes that they have only a verbal agreement to help in urgent cases.

In 2004 the settlement was equipped with sanitary containers that included common bathroom and toilet facilities and laundry rooms. Communal sinks are used to wash dishes as there is no running water in the containers.

While the containers provide sufficient facilities for a short stay, for long-term accommodation such conditions are deplorable. There is no one formally charged with managing and maintaining the settlement, there's no one to turn to when things go wrong.

Help from the OSCE

"There are multiple users of sanitary facilities in Vocar and their condition is dire," laments Chiara Lorenzini, from the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. When Chiara and her team conducted a survey on informal settlements this year, they found in Vocar that ten out of the sixteen showers were broken, fifteen out of eighteen toilets needed fixing and four out of five washing machines did not work properly.

"As we are not mandated with managing the settlement or resolving the legal issues at hand, the best we can do is to try and improve conditions for the people living there," explains Chiara. She and her team developed a renovation project to be financed from the OSCE Mission's Ethnic Communities Sustainability Fund (ECSF) established in 2000 by OSCE participating States' financial contributions.

"We decided to renovate and fix the existing sanitary faculties and purchase two new washing machines, but we also wanted to involve the municipal authority. We will finance ninety percent of the project and the municipality will provide ten percent," says Chiara. The municipality has confirmed its participation and renovations will start shortly.

Ethnic Communities Sustainability Fund

Over the last nine years, the Mission's ECSF has engaged over 1.7 million euros in activities that are helping improve living conditions amongst non-majority communities in different parts of Kosovo and support the return, remain and reconciliation of internally displaced persons (IDPs). Activities range from renovation of facilities and infrastructure to vocational training and language courses, meeting the needs of different communities. The fund will continue until sustainable support for non-majority communities, IDPs and returnees is secured.

The support provided to Vocar settlement will help, but living there is not a sustainable solution. Olgica doesn't know how long she will be calling Vocar home: "Until they send me somewhere else I guess."