Serbia: UNHCR Serbia Update, April 2019
The Asylum Office of the Ministry of Interior ruled on three applications for asylum during April, granting refugee status to one and rejecting two. So far in the first four months of 2019, the Asylum Office recognised needs for international protection of 22 asylum seekers in Serbia, granting 12 refugee and 10 subsidiary status.
In April, over 240 asylum seekers throughout the country benefitted from legal counselling by UNHCR partners and five from psychological assessments for asylum procedures, while twelve signed power of attorney to lawyers under the UNHCR project. 168 asylum seekers and refugees benefitted from substantive protection interventions by UNHCR and partners that included legal aid (56%), psychosocial support (33%), mediation (7%), or advocacy (0.6%).
367 Unaccompanied and Separated Children (UASC) benefitted from guardianship under the UNHCR project and MOU with MOLEVSA. 338 UASC were accommodated in Asylum Centres, 29 in specialized centres for children and two in NGO-run facilities.
UNHCR congratulated a group of young Roma women and men - participants of the 2018 UNHCR-UNDP project “Local initiatives for improved social inclusion of young Roma” – to winning the first prize and thus funding of the global Youth Initiative Fund for their proposal “Local Voices for Global Changes” that will enhance Roma and IDP youth inclusion. Also during April, the 2019 continuation of this joint project trained a new group of 15 young Roma volunteers for employment by local institutions.
UNHCR Serbia, together with the OSCE, verified 235 decisions of the Regional Housing Programme (RHP) in nine municipalities: Social Housing in Supportive Environment for 12 refugee families, building material grants for 107 refugee families, as well as rent/buy-off apartments for 116 refugee families. It also verified RHP Final Lists for village houses for 21 refugee families in four municipalities and for building material grants to 55 refugee families in three municipalities. On 3 April, UNHCR Serbia chaired the national RHP Coordination Meeting with Serbian Commissariat for Refugees and Migration (SCRM) and OSCE, while on 10 April, Serbia hosted the 26th Regional Coordination Forum in Belgrade, discussing the status of the RHP implementation in the four participating countries, funding, beneficiary selection and sustainability.
The Multifunctional Team of authorities, civil society and UNHCR endorsed and started using a new Communicating with Communities questionnaire with refugees and migrants in Belgrade City and border areas of West Serbia in Participatory Assessments that will continue in many more sites throughout the country during the next few weeks.
Continuing implementation of its action plan for the Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA),
UNHCR raised awareness on PSEA in focus group discussions with refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Banja Kovilja?a, Subotica, Adasevci and Sid.
UNHCR Serbia supported the participation of a high-level delegation from Serbia to presented good models at an International Conference on Addressing Statelessness in Europe in Madrid, Spain.
UNHCR is grateful to France for having accepted a refugee family of five, who departed for resettlement.
Global media sites of UNHCR published a story about the integration of a Syrian refugee in Belgrade.
