During her inaugural visit to BiH, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and UN Under-Secretary-General Ms. Alice Wairimu Nderitu visited displaced families who benefitted from the Regional Housing Programme in Sarajevo.
Ms. Wairimu Nderitu said that “ahead of World Refugee Day, I had the privilege to talk and listen to the families who are beneficiaries of thе Regional Housing Programme, an initiative that’s a grandchild of the actual UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Speaking and listening to these people has been one of the most valuable things I’ve done since I came to BiH” and added that if feels strange to talk about people who are still displaced 25 years after the war urging for closure of chapter and ensuring that everybody has a place to live.
During the conflict in the former country, between 1992 and 1995, 2.2 million people, or more than half of the pre-war population, fled their homes in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Of these, 1.2 million left the country to seek refugee protection abroad, while approximately one million were displaced within BiH.
Aside from the devastating human impact of the war, nearly 500,000 homes, or almost half of all housing units in the country, were either partially or destroyed.
The Regional Housing Programme (RHP) was established in 2012 to provide durable housing solutions to vulnerable refugees and displaced persons following the conflicts in the nineties on the territory of former Yugoslavia. The RHP is implemented by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia and mostly financed by the international donor community.
In total, EUR 65 million in RHP grant funds have been approved for sub-projects in BiH to provide approximately 3,200 housing units for vulnerable persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the end of the Programme.
Approximately 1,800 housing units have been completed to date, consisting of about 1,300 family houses and 530 apartments. Completion of the re/construction of the remaining housing units is currently scheduled for 2022.
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