Refugee camp Konik II closed after 16 years

Podgorica, Montenegro (21 December 2016) -- Four Roma families (18 persons), who have lived in the refugee camp Konik II in Podgorica over the past 16 years, returned voluntarily to Kosovo. After their return, there will be no families living in the camp Konik II, thus creating conditions for the refugee camp to be closed.

Camp Konik II was built in 2000, with the support of the UNHCR and humanitarian organisation World Vision, as an interim solution to accommodate about 60 Roma and Egyptian families who fled from Kosovo in 1999. Most of them came from the municipality of Đakovica

Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare - Directorate for Care of Refugees, and the UNHCR, with the support of the OSCE, the Danish Refugee Council, the Red Cross, IOM in Kosovo and the EU Delegation to Montenegro, and in cooperation with the authorities of Kosovo, have been making efforts towards finding permanent and sustainable solutions for the inhabitants of the refugee camps in Konik. Some of them have voluntarily returned to Kosovo. On the other hand, 44 refugee families from the camp moved in in late 2015 in the building in Vrela ribnička, constructed within the IPA project funded by the European Union.

There are still several settlements in Konik inhabited by refugee families, and the greatest of these is the camp Konik I, where Roma and Egyptians displaced from Kosovo also lives.

Over the years, through the implementation of the programme for voluntary return or integration into the Montenegrin society, the number of inhabitants and the settlements has been significantly reduced, and 950 persons or 183 families are currently residing in the camp Konik I. At the beginning, there were about two thousands of them.

Voluntary return to Kosovo will be organised during the next year as a continuous process, in line with the strategic documents of the Government of Montenegro regarding the solution to the issue of displaced persons and the Action Plan for Chapter 23.