From: draskovi@usc.edu (Zoran Draskovic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Refugees
Date: 8 Nov 1992 22:18:05 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: aludra.usc.edu


                    The Serbs Who Suffer Too

(without permission from "The Economist", Oct. 31-Nov.6, 1992)

When Miroslav's tiny Fiat puttered over the Bosnian border into Serbia, he
hardly cared if the car -- powered, he said, on petrol and water -- finally
conked out. It had taken him ten days of fear, bribes and bureaucracy to escape
Zenica, a town controlled by Bosnian Muslims. As a Serb, he had found the
Bosnian Croat army helpful in getting out. All part of the sefvice of course,
as Bosnia's Serbs and Croats tidy up the demographic map in readyness for what
they expect to be the great carve-up.

The Miroslavs who trickle in small convoys into Serbia attract little attention
from the press. When Serbs decide that Muslims in this or that part of Bosnia
are to be "ethnically cleansed", they do it in ferocious style -- herding
thousands right into the arms of waiting television crews. Small wonder that
Serb refugees are the forgotten ones of this brutish war.

On average, 1,000 people seek refuge in Serbia every day. They come from
Bosnia and Croatia. The Serbia refugee commission says there are now 421,000
registered refugees in Serbia and that another 110,000 are unregistered. Almost
half are under 18 and three-quarters are women.

The Yugoslav wars have driven more than 2m people from their homes. Dobrica
Vulovic, Serbia's refugee commissioner, says that, although the republic has
taken a quarter of all those who have fled their homes, it gets only 14% 
of the total amount of aid being dished out by international agencies and other
donors: "because we are blamed for every evil", he explains.

Everyone except the Serbs believes that Serbia is ex-Yugoslavia's most guilty
party. So, while international agencies such as the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees distribute strictly apportioned amounts of help, the
Serbs, unlike the Croats, find that this is not topped up with bilateral aid
from foreign governments.

The Miroslavs are quickly absorbed into the system. More than 90 percent of
Serbia's refugees live with host families, many of whom are not related and
generously opened their doors. As international sanctions against Serbia and
Montenegro put more and more people out of work, tens of thousands of
refugee families could soon be back on the streets. Meanwhile, the Serbian
authorities are bracing themselves for a new wave of 200,000 Serb refugees from
Bosnia and the Serb-held territories in Croatia. Most of these will be fleeing
cold and hunger, rather than fighting.

Sir Donald Acheson, the special envoy of the World Health Organization, has
said that he expects starvation to occur in Serb-besieged Sarajevo very soon.
All the international agencies say that they expect hundreds of thousands of
people, especially children and the elderly, to die in Bosnia and Hercegovina
this winter, unless far more aid can be got quickly to endangered parts of
the republic. With such horror looming next door, the plight of refugees
looks mild by comparison. But the United Nations Children's fund says that
children will die in Serbia, too. To help avert this, they want the UN
to allow Serbia and Montenegro (both equally afflicted by sanctions)
to import heating oil this winter.

Amazingly, Serbia has managed to squeeze 212,000 Serb refugee children into its
schools this term. Many of these have fled their "liberation" in the proudly
proclaimed Serbian republics in Croatia and Bosnia. Yet, according to one UN
official, when it comes to looking after its refugees, "Serbia isn't getting
the credit it deserves".