A new wave of evictions of residents of the unrecognized Collective Centre “Pionirski Grad” is expected on 27 April 2015, when the eviction of two families has been scheduled.

P.T. is one of those facing the forced eviction. P.T. is a person with a disability, he lives alone, suffers from epilepsy and has epileptic seizures on a weekly basis. The only income he has is the temporary cash benefit for internally displaced persons from Kosovo amounting to 8,500 dinars, which is certainly not enough to provide for basic living needs. Due to his health condition and social vulnerability, P.T. needs continuous support, so the failure of the competent bodies to provide him with alternative accommodation will lead him to homelessness.

We would once again like to point to the fact that the residents of “Pionirski grad” are internally displaced persons and refugees, mainly persons in poor health, the elderly, the unemployed, single parents, children and the socially vulnerable, who live in constant fear and uncertainty, without a permanent and durable solution.

With support of 35 CSOs and two networks gathering 167 CSOs, at the beginning of November 2014, Praxis sent the request to the competent authorities to prevent eviction of internally displaced persons and refugees from the unrecognized Collective Centre “Pionirski grad” during the winter period, and to find durable and sustainable solutions for refugees and IDPs threatened with homelessness. However, the only support came from the independent institutions of the Ombudsperson and the Commissioner for Protection of Equality, and from the Office for Human and Minority Rights which had made aware the competent institutions to the need to provide an alternative accommodation in cases of forced evictions and enable participation of these persons in the programmes of competent institutions related to securing the enjoyment of the right to housing.

We emphasise that numerous international documents such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-based Evictions and Displacement, of which Serbia is a signatory, envisage that persons who are forcibly evicted must be provided with alternative accommodation, while the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in its latest report from 2014, called on Serbia to undertake urgent measures to secure that citizens are consulted in all phases of evictions. The Law on Social Housing of the Republic of Serbia also sees children, youth, single parents, families with more children, solitary households, persons over the age of 65, persons with disability, refugees and internally displaced persons (…) as the members of the most disadvantageous groups and thus the priority for receiving social housing apartments. Residents of “Pionirski grad” often belong to several of the stated categories.

We once again call on the competent institutions of the Republic of Serbia to urgently suspend the evictions of residents of the unrecognized Collective Centre “Pionirski grad” and to undertake measures to secure an adequate alternative accommodation to these persons.