The Kosovo authorities need to work with international donors  to close lead-contaminated camps occupied by internally displaced Roma without delay, relocate their inhabitants, and provide medical treatment for lead poisoning, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the end of the war over Kosovo, Chachipe has issued an urgent call to the EU to find a solution to the refugee crisis. Ten years after the end of the war, several ten thousand Kosovo Roma are still waiting for their cases to be resolved, the organisation says in a letter to the European Council.

International rights group Amnesty International released a new report to mark the 10th anniversary of the end of the war in Kosovo. AI criticises authorities in Serbia and Kosovo for failing to investigate disappearances and abductions and bring those responsible to justice. The full report is available here.

Exclusion and discrimination are forcing minorities out of Kosovo a news report from the London-based Minority Rights Group (MRG) says. "There is a lack of political will and substantive investment in effective implementation of minority rights among majority Albanians," it said. "Together with a bad economy, these conditions mean that many members of minority communities are now leaving the new Kosovo state altogether." The full report is available here.

Elvis A. (26 years) from Fuldatal did not guess anything bad, when he came home from work yesterday evening. Around midnight, he was taken out of the circle of his life companion - who has a residence permit and his two young children (1 1/2 years and 3 weeks old) by police officers under the direction of the administrator of the Department for Immigration at the Government Presidency, Mr Willershausen. The next day at noon, he was deported back by plane to Kosovo.

Die Rechtsberaterkonferenz, ein Zusammenschluß Anwältinnen und Anwälten, die auf die Vertretung von Flüchtlingen spezialisiert sind und mit Wohlfahrtsverbänden und dem UN-Flüchtlingskommissariat zusammenarbeiten, hat klare Worte zur Abschiebepraxis von Roma in den Kosovo formuliert. Als »zwingendes Gebot der Humanität« sah man es dort an, den Flüchtlingen einen sicheren Aufenthalt zu gewähren. Diese Forderung erfolge nicht zuletzt aus der besonderen geschichtlichen Verantwortung Deutschlands gegenüber der Volksgruppe der Roma.

Chachipe has strongly condemned the conclusion of a bilateral readmission agreement between Germany and Kosovo. According to an information note from the Ministry of Interior of Lower Saxony to the local immigration authorities, the Kosovo authorities have recently agreed to proceed any readmission requests of individuals from Kosovo without consideration to a person’s ethnic background.

The Belgrade municipal authorities destroyed a Roma settlement by force last Friday morning (3. April 2009). 50 houses were demolished. Approximately 250 persons, amongst them many children and ill persons, were made homeless. In the past nights many of the evicted had to sleep under the open sky. Through negotiations of international organizations a part of the evicted were offered some containers in the suburb of Boljevci on Saturday night (4. April 2009). But protesting locals prevented the Roma to go to Boljevci and they destroyed the containers. At the moment (5. April) there is no alternative solution in sight.

The Ombudsperson Institution on 1 April 2009, published the ex officio report on the investigation concerning the issue of lead contamination affecting the Roma community living in the camps located in the northern part of Mitrovicë/Mitrovica since 1999.According to this the Ombudsperson Institution concluded that the elements of the case give rise to a continuous violation by UNMIK of more than one international human rights standards directly applicable in Kosovo, among which the right to life, the right to health, the right to adequate housing, the principle of non-discrimination and several rights enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The press releas can be found here, the full report here.

Thomas Hammarberg, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed deep concern about the lead-contaminated Roma camps in northern Mitrovica. "This is a humanitarian disaster of the most serious nature. It is no less than scandalous that no solution has been found to protect the inhabitants, including children, even five years after it was conclusively established that living in this area was hazardous."