Non-Governmental Organization Praxis informs the public that the Secretariat for Social Welfare of the City of Belgrade plans to evict Mrs Djemilje Veselji and her family from the accommodation in container settlement Makis II, 69 š Obrenovacki drum Street, on Friday 22 March 2013 at 10 a.m.

Djemilje Veselji and her family have been accommodated there since 26 April 2012 when they signed the contract on use of the mobile housing unit with the Secretariat for Social Welfare. They were granted the accommodation after the eviction from the informal settlement Belvil where they had lived since the displacement from Kosovo. On 11 March 2011, a decision on cancellation of the contract, issued by the Secretariat, was hung on the container of the Veselji family, in which they were ordered to empty the mobile housing unit and move out. No deadline for complaint or the instruction on legal remedy was given to the family, while they were verbally informed about when to move out.

In accordance with the provisions of the contract signed between EU Delegation in Serbia and UNOPS, the beneficiary of which is the City of Belgrade, families evicted from Belvil should be accommodated in social housing apartments by February 2015. Djemilje Veselji and other members of her family who live in the container with her are on the list of families who should be granted a social housing apartment stated in the Annex I of the Action Plan for Resettlement of Belvil.

However, bearing in mind Djemilje’s social vulnerability, her age and poverty, if she is moved out from the container accommodation, she will not be able to find any alternative accommodation where she could live until she is given the social housing apartment.

We emphasise that Serbia is a signatory of all international treaties explicitly guaranteeing the commitment of the state to secure adequate alternative accommodation, and that violation of this commitment entails responsibility before the international bodies and leads to violation of not only the right to housing but also the rights to protection of home, private and family life, property, and in most extreme cases to inhumane and humiliating treatment.

We fiercely condemn the intention of the Secretariat for Social Welfare to evict Mrs Veselji and her family and we call on the republic and City authorities to suspend their decision.

See the announcement: Forced Eviction of Djemilje Veselji and Her Family Announced
See the text of Ljubomir Zivkov in the Magazine Vreme: Kazna za nesportski zivot