DIGNITY IN THE WHITE TENT

Life in Refugee Centres

AIM Banja Luka, 2 January, 1997

In Republica Srpska, 69 reception centres will remain opened during this winter, in which there are 9,500 persons according to official data. In the region covered by the Regional Office of the Commissariat for Refugees and Humanitarian Aid of Republica Srpska, there are 14 reception centres in 17 Banja Luka minicipalities.

There are six of them in Banja Luka and Prijedor, and there is one in Laktasi and one in Celinac. There are 1332 refugees and displaced persons in them, mostly elderly and those who have no family members who could be their guardians. They are the greatest problem because they cannot take care of themselves, and in RS there are no institutions where they could be accomodated. In the Commissariat for Refugees, they announce that preparations are under way to close down three reception centres, and accomodate refugees who are in them into facilities with better conditions.

The attempt of the AIM journalist to visit the reception centre in "Ivan Goran Kovacic" Elementary School in Banja Luka was prevented by the Director of the Centre with the warning that a special permit issued by the Ministry for Refugees was necessary for every visit. Hopelessaly trying to get an explanation, the journalist had to settle for reading the notice pointed out to him which read: "Entrance forbidden for visitors and humanitarian organizations without approval of the Ministry for Refugees". Following in the track of the Director's warning we learn that the Ministry for Refugees has indeed reached a decision to ban visits to the refugee centres without a special approval of the Ministry.

Dragan Kekic, Commissioner for refugees of RS, in an interview for Glas srpski, says that the main reason for the order to ban visits to reception centres is protection of dignity of refugees and displaced persons. It sounds as ultimate cynism, but it is true! For the difficult situation of refugees, Kekic accuses international humanitarian organizations: "Months are passing, they are still just asking questions, we are answering them, and the reception centres as bewitched places still exist". Admitting that there is no money in state funds, Kekic also says that an agreement was signed with the UNHCR on maintenance of reception centres during the winter, without failing to stress that aid which is humiliating is not wanted.

Several refugees who we happened to come across near the gate did not conceal their bitterness because of such treatment. "Nobody is interested in us and our destiny. Nobody visits us, asks how we are, what we need. We sleep in locker rooms and the gym...", a man of about forty objects. He is also angry with the journalists, because, he says, they do not write about ordinary people. We learn from them that there is a barrack with refugees near by, which used to be part of the "Ivan Goran Kovacic" Elementary School reception centre, but after a couple of months it was simply 'forgotten'. Refugees who found accomodation in it are nowadays simply of nobody's concern. One can tell that people live in these abandoned premises of Budzak 3 Local Community because there is a tractor, that symbol of these unfortunate people, parked by the wall. Families Medic, Kondic, Agbaba, Glusac and Stupar have fled from Sanski Most and Krupa na Uni in September 1995. They were accomodated in the barracks in October that same year. For a few months they formed part of the reception centre, and then they were forbidden to take food from the reception centre to the barracks. They were told that those who were outside the grounds of the reception centre could not get food from the Centre.

Now they get their meals in the public kitchen opened by the Local Community. They get one meal a day. One loaf of bread, they say, is divided between three persons. "We mostly go there for the bread. The rest does not resemble food. We don't know what they cook for us, just water and a noodle here and there. They are literally humiliating us...", a woman in mourning says with indignation. "Twenty of us sleep in five offices. The roof above each and every one leaks. We turned nine-square metre offices into rooms, and we made beds out of office cabinets left behind. We got matresses from the Touring Club", her neighbour from the same village joins in the conversation. The same premises are used by these people for bathing, washing-up and washing clothes.

Children are with them. Four of them go to elementary school, one goes to a secondary school and one is a university student. "Last year we got notebooks for the children. This year we got nothing. Children have neither text-books nor notebooks", the mother of the youngest elementary school child says.

There is much misery, sorrow and discontent among these people. They do not conceal the feeling of being abandoned and rejected. "We tried to find jobs. Nobody wishes to engage us, they say 'you are too old'. We went several times to see Mikanovic in the Commissariat for Refugees, but they would not let us even enter the gate. To hell with such authorities...", a small elderly man loses patience.

People from the barracks envy refugees in reception centres because the latter have beds, cookers, two hot meals a day and a so-called "hygienic" package every month. They are angry with people from Sipovac and Mrkonjic Grad who, they say, do not want to return to their homes and are holding a few houses each in Banja Luka. They have heard that IFOR, in cooperation with the British Overseas Development Agency (ODA) will make six reception centres in the region of Prijedor and they hope that they will get accommodation there and live in conditions fit for human beings.

In the end, in comfort for themselves, they admitted that there were refugees who live in even worse conditions and said that in Banja Luka, family Djurdjevic was still living in a tent. We could not believe that in the snow blizzard in the centre of the city there was anybody still living in a tent, until we arrived, as instructed, to the part of the city called Paprikovac and next to the building of the local community found family Djurdjevic under a tent. Five grown-ups and three small children before the eyes of the their fellow-citizens are living in a white UNHCR tent a life unthinkable for peacetime conditions in this climate.

They are refugees from Drvar and have fled to a collective centre in Mrkonjic Grad, and then from there, in the known exodus of people from that town, they arrived in Banja Luka in May. Having no relatives and friends, they got a tent for their refuge. They sleep on a thin layer of cardboard thrown on the ground. Two youngest ones were brought back from the hospital with the diagnosis of pneumonia. They have not been hospitalized because they have no money to pay the expenses of treatment. Father Marko is desperate: "We were allocated a house and an apartment, but there is someone living there already and refuses to leave. The police will not evict them because they are their friends". Mirko says that he does not know what to do with children, and his wife says that in the end she will appeal to the Catholic Bishop Komarica. "Perhaps we will find some humaneness there", says the desperate woman.

We are leaving the people in the tent wondering what dignity the Minister for refugees was talking about?!

The state is promising that soon it shall try to accomodate a certain number of families into private accommodation, and keep people who are single, the elderly and persons without guardians in reception centres. The following step will be to organize operation of reception centres with the help the UNHCR. Until then, people in such and similar reception centres will live and die in conditions beneath every fundamental human dignity.

(AIM) Sasa Cotar