YUGOSLAVIA: REFUGEE CENTRES IN YUGOSLAVIA ARE TESTED TO THEIR LIMIT

Record ID: 275038

  • Title: YUGOSLAVIA: REFUGEE CENTRES IN YUGOSLAVIA ARE TESTED TO THEIR LIMIT
  • Date: 21st August 1995
  • Summary: APATIN AND BECEJ, VOJVODINA, YUGOSLAVIA (AUGUST 21, 1995) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) APATIN 1. SV EXTERIOR SCHOOL HALL / CU RED CROSS SIGN (2 SHOTS) 0.10 2. GV/CU/SV REFUGEES SITTING AND LYING ON MATTRESSES IN SCHOOL HALL (7 SHOTS) 0.50 3. CU/ZOOM OUT CROATIAN TELEVISION SHOWN ON MONITOR, REFUGEES WATCHING TELEVISION 0.57
  • Embargoed: 5th September 1995 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: APATIN AND BECEJ, VOJVODINA, YUGOSLAVIA
  • City:
  • Country: Yugoslavia
  • Reuters ID: LVA5WYBPPS3JZ4HP5TX0YDDHWD33
  • Story Text: Refugee centres in Yugoslavia are being tested to their limit after hundreds of thousands of Serb refugees from Krajina in Croatia fled to the country in the past few weeks.

    The refugees fled after Croatian forces crushed rebel Serb forces and seized that nation's Serb enclave of Krajina earlier this month, reintegrating a fifth of its territory.

    More than 5,000 refugees have entered the town of Apatin, close to the border with Croatia's region of East Slavonia. They sleep on mattresses in halls and classrooms. The International Committee of the Red Cross sent four truckloads of aid last week.

    But in other villages the situation has been alleviated by the efforts of local people.

    A Croat, visiting Apatin from the neighbouring town of Sonta, said Sonta residents had distributed two and a half cartloads of winter and summer clothes and three and a half cartloads of food to incoming refugees.

    Sonta, a small town of around 6,000 inhabitants, has accomodated 700 refugees, in spite of the fact that more than 50 per cent of the population is Croat. Like many settlements in the area, Croats and Serbs have been living together peacefully for years, even since the outbreak of war in 1991.

    In nearby Becej, a town of 44,000 people, of which 50 per cent are Hungarian, hundreds of refugees were being housed in a local school. And 131 of the 1145 refugees recently arrived in the town are being accommodated in private homes.

    One refugee from Krajina, said he did not expect peace to come quickly.


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