UN Refugee Agency To Help Bosnia And Herzegovina Set Up Asylum System
Thirteen years after opening an office in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the United Nations refugee agency said today it would
gradually refocus its work to helping the country set up its own asylum system.
The representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Bosnia, Udo Janz, told a news conference
Wednesday in Sarajevo that nearly 1 million people had returned to their homes since the Bosnian war ended more than
eight years ago, including more than 400,000 people who had gone back to areas that are controlled by their former
adversaries. As the war ended, there were 2.2 million people uprooted by the longest and bloodiest of the Balkans'
conflicts of the 1990s.
Mr. Janz described the returns as "real and tangible progress," adding that many of the returns were made possible by
Bosnia's property law, which allowed former owners to reclaim their pre-war property. He said the property law was now
almost fully implemented.
The pace of returns slowed last year, Mr. Janz noted, with some 54,000 people retuning to their homes, down from a
record nearly 108,000 the year before. He said UNHCR will continue to push for more returns but it will also gradually
shift to helping the young Bosnian State deal with the increase in refugees seeking asylum and protection there.
UNHCR first established an office in Bosnia in 1991, even before the conflict began. The agency's involvement peaked in
1995 when it ran a huge relief operation benefiting an estimated 1.5 million people. The effort included overland
convoys and the Sarajevo airlift - the longest-lasting air bridge in history. After the Dayton Peace Agreement put an
end to war in Bosnia, UNHCR focused on the return of refugees and displaced people - a task entrusted to the agency
under the accord.