420,000 refugees in Serbia

The figure dropped by 170,000 since 1995, Serbian Refugee Commissioner Sandra Raskovic-Ivic told reporters in Belgrade. She said the majority of people who need refugee status for continued support, or around 360,000, came forward, while most of those who received Yugoslav citizenship did not.

Also, a small number have returned to their homes, many have emigrated to third countries and around 50,000 have died, Raskovic- Ivic said, stressing that the death rate among refugees is substantially above the average of their surroundings. According to a survey conducted during the registration, 70 per cent of the refugees prefer integration, while just six per cent wanted to go home.

Without the option of emigrating to a third country, 26 per cent said they were still undecided. Raskovic-Ivic called on Yugoslav authorities to intensify contacts with Bosnian and Croatian authorities and speed up the return of those who want to go back.

But she said returnees face huge problems, particularly in Croatia, including a restrictive visa regime, occupied homes, possible arrest and economically devastated areas that were once occupied by ethnic Serbs. Without visa requirements, Bosnia is more open to returnees.

However, most of the homes changed owners due to a local law allowing internally displaced persons to become owners of a home they occupied for two years, Raskovic-Ivic said. Croatia ended the ethnic Serb occupation of around 30 per cent of its territory with two massive military offensives in the summer of 1995.

Fear and reports of attrocities set off an exodus of hundreds of thousands of Serbs into Yugoslavia and Serb-controlled parts of Bosnia. The Bosnian war ended with the Dayton peace agreement in 1995, which established two entities within the country, one dominated by Serbs, the other shared by Moslems and Croats.

The refugee figure does not include the large number of non- Albanians who fled Kosovo since 1999, Raskovic-Ivic said.

(dpa)