December 2008: This report highlights the difficulties encountered by returning refugees in Kosovo. In this particular case, we followed on refugee who was forcefully returned to Kosovo from Switzerland after five years in that country. No help for returning refugees is available, they have to fend for themselves, and in addition, obtaining legal papers from Kosovo is far from trivial. 

Kosovo Rroma: Returning Refugees

Rroma Foundation Reports

December 2008

I. Introduction

1. Überblick

This short Report illustrates the situation of Kosovo Rroma refugees that are forcefully returned to their country after a lengthy stay in other countries. While this report focuses on one case only, a case that we have followed closely, it is however symptomatic of the overall problems and issues that returning refugees face when returning to Kosovo.

The main issues centres around the citizenship and obtaining papers to regularise their situation. In our preceding report of November 2008, we have analysed at length the new Kosovo constitution and the requirements for obtaining the citizenship of that new country.[1] This law excludes many people who fled the country and did not return until now. But in the facts, it seems to exclude even more people, especially if they are from minorities. And without papers, nothing is possible. Access to health care and access to social help are totally curtailed if one has no valid Kosovo identification.

2. The Case

The case at hand is a somewhat typical one. The family fled to Germany in the 1990’s, was sent back to Kosovo after the Nato intervention, and fled again in 2004 to Switzerland after they suffered several attacks. The family lived in Prizren, although the husband was originally from Pec/Peje.

The Swiss authorities, after a last recourse to the Swiss Federal Administrative Tribunal (Bundes-verwaltungsgericht BvGer), ordered the return of the family to Kosovo, arguing that the situation in that country had sufficiently improved for the return of “Albanian-speaking” Rroma.[2]

The husband, which we will denote by X, was arrested in November 2008 and placed in detention. After the last appeal failed, he was forcefully returned to Kosovo early December. His wife and children are still awaiting deportation. The Swiss authorities even denied an appeal by their lawyer to deport the entire family all together, arguing that if the husband would return first, he would be able to prepare for the return of his wife and child.[3]

There are no close relatives of the family in the region. They are all refugees in either Germany or Switzerland, and many of them already have citizenship of their new home countries. The mother of X’s wife had a home in Prizren, currently unoccupied (but also unheated, without water and electricity), and X and his wife used to live in a flat that is now occupied by an Ashkali family. It has to be noted that while these facts were known to the Swiss authorities, it was stated that the family would have no trouble living either in their old house or in the house of X’s mother in law.

II. Forced Return

1. Arrival

X was sent back to Kosovo by plane, with Swiss travel documents. This travel document, valid for a short period is the sole identification paper he received. He was not given any address of a place where he could go and ask for help upon arrival.

Upon arrival in Pristina, he was identified by the Kosovo border police as a returning refugee, and was put into a room and was interviewed by a Kosovo Police representative as well as by a lady of the UNHCR (although they did not give their names to X). He was asked whether someone was waiting for him, whether he had a place to stay, where he was from etc. He answered that he did not know if someone would wait for him, as he had no contacts in Kosovo. He also replied that he had no real place to stay.

In spite of these answers, he was let out, totally on his own.

Luckily for him, the Foundation had organised someone to fetch him at the airport and to bring him to Prizren.

2. Papers

The following day, after having spent a night with some very distant relatives in Prizren,[4] more than 8 people in one room, X went to his original hometown of Pec/Peje to ask for a birth certificate in order to regularise his legal situation in Kosovo.

He went to the local administration and was told that with the identification he was presenting, i.e. the Swiss travel document, he was not entitled to obtain a birth certificate. He was also told that anyhow, since he had not been in Kosovo prior and during the war, he could forget getting a passport.

We asked for an official statement on that topic. To no avail. It has to be noted that it s not even sure that X’s birth certificate is still in Pec/Peje, as many documents were taken to Serbia in 1999 by the retreating Serbian army.

Without birth certificate, the chances of obtaining a Kosovo passport are remote, especially since X was neither in Kosovo on January 1st, 1998 nor at the independence.

X also went to Pristina to the main passport office. He was told that with the document that he had, there was o possibility for him to obtain a passport or a proper residency in Kosovo.

3. Health Care and other Social Benefits

X’s has a tumour in his ear that requires an urgent operation. He thus went to the hospital in Prizren to enquire about possible treatment and operation. Again, he was bluntly told that without Kosovo papers, he would not be treated. And also, that his condition could anyhow not be properly treated in Kosovo. He received the same answer at the hospital in Pristina. Without papers, no treatment, and anyhow, his condition could not really be treated properly in the region.

Private doctors require full payment in cash, which X’s doesn’t have, and are unwilling to treat someone who has no official raison d’être in Kosovo.

On the same premises, X is not entitled to any social benefits. There is no office taking care of returning refugees, and there are no NGOs who are actively helping returning refugees in the region.

4. Housing

X’s housing situation is not yet cleared, after more than 10 days in Kosovo. He is still living with distant relatives. One thing is sure: He cannot return to his own house, as it is occupied, and the people living there as tenants (as he was too), are not ready to move out.

His mother in law’s house is empty, but is unheated, has no water, and no electricity. The chances that he can restore the utilities to this house, especially at a time where cutting electricity and water from Rroma houses is a frequent phenomenon in Kosovo is less than sure.

III. Fazit

As X has not been able to obtain any Kosovo residency papers nor a passport, this in spite of repeatedly trying (and with help and in the presence of witnesses), one cannot but argue that the Swiss authorities engaged in an illegal deportation of a stateless person. In fact, this deportation is even illegal under Swiss law, as the Swiss law on foreigners, article 31, par. 1 ANAG AUG specifically states that stateless people are entitled to a residency permit in Switzerland.

Switzerland also explicitly put X in a catch 22 situation. Faced with no prospects in Kosovo, no citizenship, no health care or social benefits, no real help, should he chose to flee, he cannot go to Switzerland, as the new asylum laws require him to provide valid documents from his country of origin. In addition, Switzerland forbade him to enter the country for two years.

[1] See Rroma Foundation Reports: Kosovo Rroma: The Situation after Independence. November 2008.

[2] The Swiss authorities have invented a rather dubious “classification” of Rroma in Kosovo. There are “Albanian-speaking” and “Serbian-speaking” Rroma in that region (regardless as to whether they speak Rromanes or not). The fact that almost all Rroma speak both these languages besides Turkish and Rromanes is not taken into consideration. The Office for Foreigners (Bundestamt für Migration) has in fact argued that this language classification was based on the primary contact of the Rroma with the surrounding population.

[3] He has another two children, but they are in Switzerland.

[4] In Most European countries, these people would not even count as relatives. They are second degree cousins by marriage an not by blood.