LIFE ON THREE PARAS A DAY
The Refugee Camp in Krnjaca
AIM Belgrade, March 28, 1997
The refugee camp "Krnjaca" is located in PIM's barracks on the road to Pancevo, in the close neighbourhood of Belgrade, between the brushwood and foul smelling swamps. At the moment, there are some 580 refugees from Bosnia, Krajina and Croatia there. The collective accommodation such as this, and in several other camps all over Serbia, has forced as much as 70 people to share one larger hall, while smaller ones accommodate some 30 of them. Seven barracks have rooms with four beds, while in three of them five to six persons share one small room.
It is as if indifference of these people has suppressed the fear of a possible epidemic of wider proportions. Collective bathrooms, toilets, poor hygiene, the surrounding swamps full of stale water, do not make a pretty picture of the conditions under which these people live. Nothing unusual, when it is known that the daily "budget" per refugee, which, according to the last year's census, officially number 617 thousand, as well as the additional 120 thousand of those who did not respond to the census, amounts to three paras a day. According to the plan, this year's total budget of the Commission for Refugees should reach USD 60 million.
Whether aware of these figures or not, the people in the camp practically live from hand to mouth, thus trying to make the days spent in uncertainty easier both for them and their kin. The mistrust towards those who come from outside is noticeable, although they try to leave the impression of that they mean no harm. They start the conversation with much reserve but, under the weight which is on their minds, people soon open up. It is as if they want to get off their chest that what is bugging them. They speak openly of the dissatisfaction with their status, fear of return, of the announced revision of the refugee status and the uncertain future. The camp management assures us that there are no lists of those who will lose their refugee status, but that rumour predominates all talks on the barracks' stairs and in other places where the people gather so as to "kill" the extra time which is the only thing they have enough and to spare.
About the quality and quantity of food, which is enough for bare survival, Ljiljana Smiljanic, Head of the Food Service in the refugee camp said for the AIM: "There is nothing we can do, because with 15 dinars a day, as much as we get from the Commission for Refugees per person, it is impossible to provide better conditions. That sum should cover three meals, the laundry, electricity, water and phone bills. The food we get from various humanitarian organizations is most frequently unvaried, with expiry dates long passed so that it is impossible to use it adequately. A large number of diabetes patients, retarded persons, disabled of all categories, children of all ages accommodated in this camp need different and more varied food from the one we serve, but we have no possibility for that. Our collocutor thanked the Australian humanitarian organization CARE for regular supplies of fruits and vegetables. She added that paste is the main dish every other day.
Hygiene in the camp is nothing to write home about, although at first glance things appear rather decent altogether. But only until you get inside the halls or rooms in which whole families live, irrespective of the age, sex or health condition of their members. The greatest burden of keeping things in order is on the women who use their resourcefullness so as to make this little "home" they have look decent. Only a small number of those who have some work outside can afford a soap or a toothpaste. Lately, toiletries rarely come. As we heard, last week the Fund for Open Society sent a quantity of soaps which was immediately distributed, and that was the first delivery since last August. Inhabitants of "Krnjaca" do not have major objections against health services in the camp, but the sick and disabled, who are in great numbers here, are treated in Belgrade hospitals. A large number of severely handicapped persons, children and sick make this sorrowful picture complete.
What these people fear most is any change in Serbia's governmental policy concerning refugees. Serbia had welcomed the first refugees with food and drinks. It gave lavishly for their accommodation and food expenses. The first refugees even got personal documents (albeit with the remark T-transit), but had no problems with renewing their passports, car registration plates, driving licences. The authorities were eager to enable these people realize their rights and vote - unanimously for the ruling party. After the elections things went downhill for these people as the authorities more openly started complaining of Serbia being unable to carry the heavy burden of caring for the refugees.
The role of the Commission in providing help to the refugees is rather debatable, considering the poor effects achieved in the humanitarian work, especially now when refugees no longer represent a trump card of the local authorities. After bad experiences with the Commission, many donors, both foreign and local, have stopped their humanitarian activities.
People temporarily residing in Krnjaca do not believe that the existing Law on Refugees can resolve the rights of refugees, as it is, as they say, "overflowing with prohibitions and ways for losing refugee status". The Law on Yugoslav Citizenship (which came into force on January 1, 1997) allows "the admission to Yugoslav citizenship". However, it conditions the refugee status so that these people are required to submit statements that they had to flee before national, religious or political pressures they had been subjected to and had to renounce the Croatian citizenship. Naturally, it is impossible to obtain such a document.
Whether to return, how and where to? These questions torment the majority of those who are living their refugee days in Krnjaca, but also in other collective centers: "It is nonsense to speak about the return when you have nowhere to return to" said Nemanja Djukic (24) a refugee from Osijek, adding: "those who came from Bosnia can think about it, but we can never go back to Croatia. I have applied for emigration to Canada and am now waiting for the interview. I think that things will not change until the FR Yugoslavia and Croatia regulate their relations. For example, my father has to "fight" now for his pension and is considering the possibility of starting from the beginning in some village. If I do not manage to go to Canada, I will do the same." There are many stories, all different but somehow the same. The cause is the same, the fate of those telling them is the same. Their eyes are turned to the future with fear and mistrust.
Joint life and collective living bothers many. Most want to move out. Many are hurt by the fact that they have relatives in Serbia who did not give them a helping hand, but, as Dobrila Opehal, once a doctor in the Kosevo Hospital in Sarajevo, said "that's what we the Serbs are like, only care for ourselves...". A number of people in the camp, refugees from Croatia, would like to get Croatian citizenship papers, but that takes very long and the Croatian authorities make the return extremely difficult for those who wish to do so. As regards personal documents, all camp inhabitants only have refugee identity cards with which they were able to realize almost "all" rights, apart from travelling abroad or getting employed. "None of us have personal documents which people living in Serbia have, so that we live with the refugee status and Commission's files, and they refuse to issue us passports. We are waiting to see what will happen with the agreement on special visas of Serbia and the RS and whether we will be able to acquire citizenship", told us Goran Maric giving the officer his coupons for his ration of toiletries.
People without home, hope, mostly sick, broken by stress, poverty, packed into "matchboxes" live their refugee days behind wire fences far from the public eye and politicians who have forgotten them as they do not need any longer. Today, they are only remembered by some wandering representatives of humanitarian organizations, people linked to them by their work, or some journalist or a photographer who have, with delay, decided to make a solid career for themselves with photos of their sufferings. At the gate a man in a wheelchair, without both legs - what an irony of fate - selling chocolate, meets you and sees you off. You should buy one, not out of pity, but to remove the bitter aftertaste which you feel in your mouth leaving this sorrowful place.
(AIM) Zoran Knezevic