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Germany: Yugoslavs to be deported (1)

01 January 1991

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Germany: Yugoslavs to be deported
artdoc June=1994

A plan by Germany to deport tens of thousands of people back to
Serbia via Romania has been put on hold after protests and the
reservations of the Romanian government. Germany announced that
from 10 March it intended to begin expelling refugees from
Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro. The first of those to be expelled,
from the North Rhine-Westphalia Lande, were to be flown to
Timisoara in Romania where they were to be put on buses and
driven to Serbia. The Lande Interior Ministry made an agreement
with the Romanian airline TAROM to transport deportees on flights
of four Boeing planes on 17, 21, 24 March. This indirect route
via Romania by-passes the UN ban on international flights to
Serbia, and the normal obligation to return refugees directly to
their country of origin. It was also being planned without the
agreement of the Yugoslav authorities in Belgrade.
This programme of repatriation of refugees considered `illegal'
involved ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, Serbs, Montenegrins, and
people of mixed nationality. The Serbs to be returned included
those from Bosnian Serbia and the Republic of Serbian Krajini who
still have Yugoslav passports because they could not accept new
ones from the Bosnian Muslim government in Sarajevo. It did not
affect refugees from Croatia or Bosnia-Herzegovina. Some of the
refugees from Serbia and Montenegro fled to Germany to avoid
military service. Yugoslav officials say that planned
deportations could involve between 200,000 and 300,000 refugees.
This move appears to be part of a much larger scale
repatriation plan for refugees from the former Yugoslavia
involving a number of West European governments. These
governments are keen to deport refugees defined as `illegal' as
soon as they can declare `safe' areas for them to be returned to.
Reuters, 7 & 8.3.94; Tanjung news agency, 8.3.94.

Statewatch Vol 4 no 2, March-April 1994

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