ANKARA
After the war in Bosnia between 1992-1995, in which approximately 2.5 million people had become refugees, 727,000 Bosnians have returned to their abandoned homes.
"Following the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995 that guaranteed return for Bosnians to their home, countless people could not come back to their cities due to bureaucratic obstacles, unemployment and impossibility, " Mirhunisa Zukic, president of Bosnian Union for Sustainable Return, a non-governmental organization, told AA correspondent on Wednesday.
During the war 2.5 million people were forced to leave their homes, Zukic reminded.
"With the war, more than 1 million citizens had to go to different countries. Others had move to several districts in the country. Coming back home began with the Dayton Peace Agreement but it has not finished yet. According to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there have still been 75 thousand refugees in Bosnia-Herzogevina. In last 3 years, 727,000 Bosnians have returned their homes," Zukic said.
Zukic said that 325,000 homes were repaired and 145,000 more would be repaired for Bosnians. "Nearly 100,000 people have not applied for coming back. They do not want to take a step due to expensive and complicated procedures," Zukic added.
"Many houses are being repaired but employment and education problems are not being solved as well as social security," said Zukic. Therefore a lot of people who returned to the country have no idea what they would do, Zukic stated.
UNHCR, Council of Europe, European Commission, European Development Bank, U.S., Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are going to organize a donation conference on April 24, 2012 in Sarajevo for all refugees who suffered from the war between 1992-1995.
The target of the conference is to collect 500 million Euro donation, Zukic stated.
Foreign ministers of Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia Herzogevina will attend the conference and the donation will be used for refugees who want to return.
The war in Bosnia that lasted 3.5 years and continued with the "genocide" in Srebrenitsa came to an end in 1995 with the Dayton Peace Agreement.
Around 100,000 Bosnians were killed, 50,000 women were raped and 2.5 million people had become refugees. Following the ethnic cleansing, almost no Muslim population was left in the cities of Srebrenitsa, Foca, Zvornik, Bratunac and Visegrad in the east of the country.
