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INTRODUCTION

The plight of Kosovo Roma refugees in Macedonia—dramatically demonstrated by their protest occupation of a border area between Greece and Macedonia from May until August this year—highlights the gap between international refugee law on the one hand, and the reality for refugees in Europe today on the other. This Human Rights Watch briefing paper analyzes the Macedonia refugee crisis in light of international refugee law and points towards possible solutions that can be found in these relevant international standards.

Between May 19 and August 9, 2003, 700 Roma expelled from Kosovo to Macedonia in 1999 were occupying an area in the immediate vicinity of the Macedonian-Greek border, near the village of Medzitlija, in an attempt to awaken broader attention to their desperate situation. They demanded resettlement to a member state of the European Union (E.U.) or another Western country, believing that their return to Kosovo was not a realistic option in the foreseeable future, and claiming that four years of refuge in Macedonia had brought only utter misery and hopelessness. The refugees moved to the border area after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) closed their camp, proposing to help them move elsewhere in Macedonia. On August 9, exhausted and frustrated by the lack of visible achievements after eighty days of protest, the Roma abandoned Medzitlija and, in smaller groups, moved into several other locations. The biggest group, consisting of some 300 persons, went to a transit center in Kumanovo; some 100 Roma went to a smaller collective center in Katlanovo; and others moved into private accommodations in and around Skopje.¹ On August 28, those from the Kumanovo transit center moved into private accommodations in Skopje.²

While the immediate Medzitlija crisis has passed, a viable long-term solution for the Kosovo Roma refugees in Macedonia continues to elude the Macedonian government and relevant international actors. Attempts to find common ground between the various parties involved—the Roma refugees themselves, the Macedonian government, the UNHCR, and European Union member states—have proven arduous and mostly unsuccessful.

Human Rights Watch believes that a solution to the refugee crisis, while not simple, is possible, if the major governmental and intergovernmental actors involved adhere to the options and guidelines offered by international refugee law and show a far greater determination to use the political and financial tools at their disposal.

First, Western governments with resettlement policy, working with the UNHCR, should give serious consideration to accepting individuals who have particularly dim prospects for safe voluntary return to Kosovo and for legal, social, and cultural integration and protection in Macedonia. At the same time, and so long as conditions for safe return to Kosovo are not in place, the Macedonian government, assisted by international institutions, should considerably strengthen efforts to recognize the status of Roma refugees, and enable them to enjoy their rights under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention) as well as other human rights treaties.