Homeless for Indefinite Time

Tear of one child negates the existence of God, says Dostoevsky . What are negating tears of one million and two hundred thousand of our refugees' children? Boutros Ghali, the UN General Secretary, announced yesterday the qualified estimation of those in the know that 3.045.000 persons from and in the former Yugoslavia have refugee status. In other words, every eighth citizen of the mentioned state is homeless by somebody else's will. That's what the statistics say.

According to the Serbian Commissariat for Refugees and the Red Cross, there are around 550,000 refugees in Serbia. It is rightfully suspected that there are additional 160,000 unregistered, who failed "to enjoy the benefits" of governmental and political care for their well-being. In short, the real number of refugees in Serbia today has reached the figure of 700,000. Most of them come from B-H and Croatia, considerably less from Slovenia and the least from Macedonia. Some 500 up to 2,000 former citizens of Yugoslavia enter Serbia daily. Lately, the number of refugees from the parts of Croatia that were not involved in war has increased considerably.

In Mali Zvornik refugees already represent one half of the population, in Ljubovija, Loznica and Indjija one quarter, and in the remaining 16 municipalities that gave them refuge they make no less than 10%. Belgrade, long before demographs and urbanists could predict, ended up with 2 million inhabitants. Every seventh person is - a homeless, without counting "the regular" hobos.