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Feature Story: Rebuilding life in Kosovo

Under an EU-funded project aimed at reintegrating minority communities, 32 Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian (RAE) families returned to Kosovo this summer to newly built homes

At first glance, the town of Hallaq I Vogel, some 20 kilometres outside Pristina, looks like any other village in Kosovo. But a closer look reveals that some of the houses have a particularly fresh layer of bricks. These homes were built under an EU-funded project for five Ashkali families who returned in August 2005. They are the first people to come back to this once mixed village since the town's Ashkali residents fled in 1999 in the aftermath of the conflict here.

Luljeta Mehmeti, 27, lives in one of these houses. For her, life is slowly returning to normal. After leaving Kosovo with her family in 1999, she spent six years as a refugee in Novi Sad in northern Serbia. Today things are looking up. 'I'm happy to be back home,' she says, with her children aged 10, 7 and 2, standing beside her. 'My husband has even found a job in Pristina.'

The reconstruction of these homes is part of a EUR 1.1 million project, managed by the European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR) and implemented by Irish humanitarian organisation GOAL. Altogether, 32 houses were built for the RAE community in Hallaq I Vogel and two other villages between August 2004 and August 2005. The families were actively involved in rebuilding their own homes, with one member of each family moving to the village ahead of time to assist GOAL staff with construction. The houses range in size from 50 to 100 m2 and cost between EUR 12,000 and EUR 16,000 to rebuild.

Just down the road from the Mehmetis is another new house. This one belongs to the Sheme family, who recently returned from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, where they had been living since they were displaced in 1999. Forty-six-year-old Fatmir Sheme is happy to be in the new house, where he lives with his wife, five children, parents and son-in-law, but he also suffers from health problems and, like so many others in town, he has not managed to find work. He also faces an uphill battle in registering for unemployment benefits with the local authorities, since many of his documents were lost when he fled Kosovo. He points to the dilapidated house next door where his brother used to live with his family. They chose not to return, but have since changed their minds, he says.

The EU-funded housing project also provides each family with income generation support, which some have used to purchase building and farm equipment or meat-processing machinery. The town's roads and water supply system were also refurbished, and the electrical network was revamped in a joint effort with Kosovo's Energy Corporation (KEK). Over the past three years, the EU has spent more than 20 million euros on programmes benefiting Kosovo's minority communities. The town of Kosh/Kos recently saw the return of 28 ethnic Serb returnee families and four ethnic Albanian families to new homes rebuilt under another EAR project.

In Hallaq I Vogel, five of the village's 15 displaced Ashkali families have returned so far. With the help of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, GOAL staff were able to locate the families, who had fled to Serbia, FYROM and other parts of Kosovo, and to identify those that wanted to come back. GOAL then conducted a round of consultation with local villagers to prepare them for the return of the refugees.

'It was a bit tense in the beginning and it was difficult to convince the villagers to accept the return of the Ashkali families,' says Ismajli Feti, the 40-year-old Kosovar Albanian head of the village. 'But day by day, it's getting better.'

Now the biggest problem - for the town's ethnic Albanians and Ashkalia alike - is the economy, Mr Feti says. He estimates that unemployment in the village is about 90 per cent. Having spent 19 years working in the construction industry in Germany before returning to Kosovo in 1999, he says that he would prefer to stay in Kosovo, but that he can only hold out another year: 'If I can't find a job, I'll have to go back to Germany,' he says.