23 families housed in collective centre in Hrasnica, no progress on apartment construction

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - There is one collective centre in Hrasnica in Sarajevo Canton where 51 persons, i.e. 23 families, are accommodated. Thirteen families, i.e. 27 persons, have the status of displaced persons, and 10 families are in a state of social need.

The project that was officially supposed to close this collective centre, i.e. reconstruct it by building 30 apartments for these families, has not been implemented for years.

The reconstruction of the building in Hrasnica was supposed to be financed with funds from the Council of Europe Development Bank, and the project implementer is the Federal Ministry of Displaced Persons and Refugees. The relevant cantonal ministry does not have precise data on the project's phase.

When asked by the Patria agency whether there is a possibility to accommodate the users of the collective centre in vacant apartments at the disposal of municipalities, the Ministry of Labour, Social Policy, Displaced Persons and Refugees responded that it has no jurisdiction over the allocation of apartments for which no return request has been submitted.

- This issue falls under the jurisdiction of municipalities, so each municipality separately, through public calls based on established criteria, allocates these apartments for further use. The Ministry is aware of the fact that some of the users of our accommodation capacities and users of alternative accommodation have individually applied in response to published calls in the past period, but this ministry could not influence or initiate the selection of users of municipal apartments even in those cases - the Ministry states in its response.

For example, the Stari Grad Municipality has implemented three projects for the construction of residential buildings, and there are no longer any internally displaced persons in this municipality. The last 11 families moved into a building on Baruthani in October 2016.