The IOM Mission in Belgrade is launching a new one-year programme
to provide housing for vulnerable families of former refugees and
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who are currently living in
overcrowded collective centres.

Approximately 11,000 beneficiaries, who were expelled from
Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, Croatia in 1995 and displaced from
the province of Kosovo in 1999, are currently living in squalid
conditions in 119 former state owned premises such as derelict army
barracks, hotels and schools, often without access to proper water
and sanitation facilities.

The EUR 800,000 funding from the European Agency for
Reconstruction (EAR) will allow IOM to provide financial support to
about 2,000 vulnerable households to help them purchase village
houses. The funding will also allow for the construction of new
two-storey buildings in urban centres as well as for the upgrading
of existing collective centres to bring them up to modern
standards.

The programme will be carried out in coordination with EAR, the
Government's Commissariat for Refugees and selected municipalities.
The construction of new buildings and the rehabilitation of
existing collective centres will be carried out in cooperation with
the NGO Housing Center.

Special attention will be given to single-headed households and
to very poor families whose members are unemployed or
underemployed.

For further information, contact:

Zivota De Luca

IOM Belgrade

Tel +381 11 382 17 03

E-mail: "mailto:delucav@iom.int" target="_blank" title=
"">delucav@iom.int