By Jelena L. Petković
There was at least hope in the ashes.
“Who is Milanka Terzić?” a border police officer asked on a packed bus. I stood up. “Take your things and step out,” he said. I was stunned. Two hours later, a special police unit arrived. One of them asked me, “Sister, would you like a glass of water?” No, I said. Show me why I’m being arrested. They took me from the southern part of Mitrovica to Istok. For the third time, they put handcuffs on me. A police inspector recognized me. “Milanka, what is this all about?” he asked. I didn’t know. He looked at his computer and said: “Well, well, you’ve been charged—war criminal, serious offender, Serbian nationalist.”
These fragments from 2017 in the life of 73-year-old Milanka Terzić from Istok may have long faded from the public eye, but they remain etched in the memory of her compatriots.
They’ve been recounted countless times within the moldy walls of an unregistered refugee camp, in a place with no bus stop, deep in the Belgrade neighborhood of Resnik—where anyone heading there has to walk the rest of the way.
In a deep hollow, where the gray rooftops barely rise above street level, and only the occasional chimney smokes even in summer—moisture seeps into the bones. Beneath the frequency of city noise, silently and invisibly, like her native Bistrica river, dozens of lives flow on.
Once workers’ barracks, the buildings have for decades been home to families who fled from Klina, Istok, Pec, and Prizren. About 40 remain today, including some with children. The lucky ones have two rooms. A small, cold bathroom is shared by all.
“Yes, we’re still here. Right now, we have water and electricity,” says Milanka Terzić, holding a bucket, then adds: “Thank God, there are fewer people now. We’re happy each time someone leaves—one less homeless person, one more roof over a head.”
She was born in Vitomirica near Pec. She has four children, 13 grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. One of her sons lives in the unit next door. The family fled to Montenegro in 1999, and since 2012, they’ve been celebrating and mourning in two tiny rooms in the barracks.
“I applied to return to Kosovo in 2011, through UNHCR and the Serbian Commissariat. But no one managed to go back. I couldn’t return to my father’s land in Vitomirica, nor to my husband’s village, Begov Lukavac near Istok. In the end, trying to sell the house is what got me arrested,” says Milanka, explaining the desperate situation she found herself in:
“I tried to sell the property and offered it first to the man who had taken it. I told him—‘Be fair, buy it properly, let’s stay neighbors, friends—we never had bad blood.’
But he threatened me. I struck a deal with his cousin to buy it. But when I went to Kosovo to finalize the sale, they stopped me at the border and pulled me off the bus.”
We asked the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for data on how many applied to return but couldn’t, and why. We also requested information on property disputes. They referred us to Serbia’s Commissariat for Refugees and Migration, which did not respond to our inquiry.
Suitcases Full of Empty Promises
Will Brestovik survive?
“No, it won’t,” says Slađana Dašić Miletić through gritted teeth, eyes tightly shut. A mother of four, she lives at the foot of Sestar hill and Asan’s Peak.
“I’d be happiest if they stayed here, and I could, as a grandmother, raise my grandchildren in the yard. That’s every parent’s dream, but…”
They didn’t know how to live anywhere else, they said when they returned in September 2004.
Brestovik’s peacefulness, overgrown with wild greenery and shadowed by the looming mountains that bring Kosovo’s earliest twilight, quickly reminds one that this is just the illusion of peace. There is no laughter.
Under the return program, 77 houses were built in this Pec-area village. But only 14 are inhabited. In total, about 25 people remain, Slađana explains:
“People came back out of hope, out of emotion. They shut out the fear. No one left again because they were afraid. They left because of money. There was no work, especially not for the young. Only the elderly stayed.”
They expected more support from Serbia, she adds, because “they never really relied on Kosovo’s institutions”:
“There were about 20 young people then. We hoped they’d get some help. Ministers and directors came to my house with suitcases full of promises. But in the end, nothing. Our own state turned a deaf ear to our pleas. Brestovik died out. Not just Brestovik—Siga, Ljevosa, Belo Polje, Vitomirica too…”
“I see that young people are reluctant to leave. If only they had some support—if the state would stand behind us…”
The village health clinic operates out of a private house. For everything else, they go to nearby Gorazdevac.
“Well, now we can’t even go to Gorazdevac for many things. We have to go to the containers, to Brnjak and Jarinje,” she says, referring to the shift that came after Kosovo police sealed the Serbian Post branch in early 2024, cutting off financial services.
The school in Brestovik, once opened with great ceremony, is now closed. There are no more children.
The Dašić family has three children in university and one in high school. Slađana works; her husband is retired. They cover bills through farming. Slađana isn’t one to complain much.
“We’re managing. Only this political situation—that’s our biggest problem right now. This game of ping-pong, this tennis match they’re playing,” she says, waving a hand over her head.
That’s where the balls fly—deciding people’s fates.
Banjska Shattered the Numbers
In March 2000, Serbia’s Commissariat for Refugees and Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) registered 187,129 people displaced from Kosovo. Between 2000 and 2005, that number increased by another 20,000. According to their website, there are currently 196,140 citizens with that status.
Data from Kosovo’s Ministry for Communities and Returns shows that between 2000 and 2025, a total of 29,476 individuals returned to Kosovo: 12,863 Serbs, 7,786 Ashkali, 4,106 Montenegrins…
Statistics indicate that the years of greatest hope—those with the highest number of returnees—were two decades ago:
In 2003, 3,802 people returned; in 2004, 2,469; and in 2005, as many as 2,126.
In the past two years, however, the figures have dropped to double digits: 66 returnees in 2024, and just 25 so far this year.
The sharp deterioration in security following the Banjska conflict in the municipality of Zvecan, in September 2023, has clearly had a profound impact on this process.
“Since Banjska happened, it’s evident that interest in returning has significantly declined. Because the security situation in Kosovo is such a crucial factor for returnees, it’s likely that similar obstacles will continue to make the return process more difficult. But we’re doing our best,” says Nenad Rašić, Kosovo’s Minister for Communities and Returns in the technical government.
The Ministry also records 15,582 internally displaced persons within Kosovo—8,369 Serbs and 6,900 Albanians. The highest number of displaced Serbs is in the Mitrovica region—6,810 Serbs and 6,900 Albanians—where 77 people, or 35 families, reside in ten collective centers. In the municipality of Leposavic, 24 families—a total of 56 individuals—remain displaced.
In recent days, the municipality of Leposavic, led by Mayor Lulzim Hetemi, has closed six collective centers, providing new accommodation for the families who lived there.
According to KoSSev, the buildings constructed in Leposavic, Lesak, and Socanica—funded by the Serbian government—are at the center of a dispute between Kosovo and Serbian institutions, as well as citizens who claim to have been wronged.
This is just one chapter in a long-running jurisdictional dispute over the most vulnerable group of citizens—whose position in this back-and-forth power struggle worsens year after year. A previous flashpoint was the construction of the returnee settlement “Sunny Valley” (Sunčana dolina) in Zvecan.
“We also saw troubling images and statements coming from Pristina about the houses funded by the Republic of Serbia. The whole thing was wrongly perceived and presented to the public as colonization of northern Kosovo, rather than the return and reintegration of people who, unfortunately, were forced to leave in 1999 or 2004,” recalls Miodrag Milićević, executive director of the NGO Aktiv, based in North Mitrovica.
Security
“Especially in the Pec region, returnees have often been targeted—either by organized groups or individuals who threatened them. Unfortunately, the overall sense of insecurity remains unresolved to this day. It’s always linked to both local and central institutions, including the Ministry for Communities and Returns. Whether that’s intentional or not is up to those currently in office or who served in previous Kosovo governments to say. Still, a chance was missed to ensure people a dignified life equal to that of the majority population in Kosovo,” concludes Miodrag Milićević.
Kosovo’s Ministry for Communities and Returns does not keep data on the number of attacks against returnees.
On the other hand, Serbia’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija recorded a total of 656 ethnically motivated incidents between 2021 and June 2025, according to figures on its website. Broken down by year: 128 incidents in 2021, 150 in 2022, 179 in 2023—the highest so far, 124 in 2024, and 75 so far in 2025.
In early May, we contacted the Office for Kosovo and Metohija in writing to discuss these and other return-related issues. They did not respond.
Previously, the OSCE Mission in Kosovo—which monitors and documents incidents affecting community security—recorded 1,518 security incidents between January 2015 and December 2018 that “potentially impacted minority communities’ perceptions of safety at the municipal level.”
Of those incidents, 346 cases—nearly 25%—occurred in returnee communities and primarily affected Kosovo Serb returnees, according to the OSCE’s 2019 report.
In recent years, numerous organizations in northern Kosovo have warned that security remains precariously low. They emphasize that arbitrary arrests—for, as they put it, expressing political views or displaying national symbols—as well as widespread incidents of sexual harassment of women, have fueled an atmosphere of fear.
Recently, sixteen civil society organizations from northern Kosovo sent a letter to Kosovo’s Ombudsperson, as well as to international representatives and organizations, in response to the detention of five and subsequent deportation of four Serbs from Kosovo. These individuals were banned from staying or reentering Kosovo, without any court ruling.
War Crimes
“I was held in a basement cell for 48 hours. It was cold, no windows, something was hissing—must’ve been air seeping in,” recalls Milanka Terzić.
“They appointed me a public defender—a very decent man—who managed to get me placed under house arrest while the trial was underway. Since I had nowhere else to go, I was taken in by the Patriarchate,” she shrugs, then adds:
“I was lucky to stay composed during the interrogation, not to panic from fear. I explained I’d been coming to Kosovo for 18 years, that my Kosovo ID card was registered at the address of the very man who was now accusing me of being a war criminal and of burning down his house. He had even given me the document needed to register my residence with them.”
Milanka Terzić was eventually released.
Miodrag Milićević stresses that such allegations of war crimes are extremely sensitive matters, but notes that the entire Serbian community is asking, “How is it possible that such indictments are being pulled out of old case files after 25 years—and almost always against people who have recently regained their property after long legal disputes?”
He points out that the issue has drawn attention from parts of the international community and believes the Brussels dialogue platform should be the key political tool for resolving such cases.
“This is probably the most painful point of the entire return process,” adds Minister Nenad Rašić, though he says it’s impossible for him to intervene or comment officially:
“Honestly, through personal contacts, I try to help with finding lawyers—but strictly in a private capacity. I hope these indictments are dwindling and that there will be fewer of them in the future.”
Dalibor Jevtić, former Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo and Minister for Communities and Returns, had also spoken about this in the past, particularly when Belgrade and Pristina exchanged cadastral records, triggering the start of resolving some property-related court disputes. This put possible abuses under the spotlight.
Jevtić, who held the position of the Minister for Communities and Returns three times, did not respond to requests to comment on these or other return-related questions.
As compensation for 48 hours in detention, Milanka Terzić received €40.
“My heart’s damaged, my thyroid is diseased, and I developed diabetes,” she says. “I filed a lawsuit, but it’s going nowhere. Trying to get my property back has cost me everything. From a decent pension of 67,000 dinars, I now receive 27,000. That barely covers medicine and food. The rest goes toward a loan I had to take out to deal with the legal disputes over the property.”
She still travels to Kosovo regularly—to visit her father’s and brothers’ graves on holidays.
Usurped Property
The OSCE Mission in Kosovo last published its Assessment of Voluntary Returns Report six years ago, stating: “The return process has been hindered by issues related to property rights, security incidents, and resistance from receiving communities.”
“Notable developments occurring during the reporting period included the start of the construction of a large returnee settlement ‘Sunny Valley’ in Zvecan in June 2016, protests against the return of displaced Kosovo Serbs in the village of Musutiste in Suva Reka municipality in August 2016, the spontaneous return of 13 Kosovo Serbs to the village of Ljubozda in Istok municipality in March 2017, while in 2018 security incidents affected visits to Serbian Orthodox religious sites in Djakovica, Donji Petric, Klina and in Studenica, Istok municipality,” the report noted, adding:
“Displaced persons continued to face challenges in enjoyment of their property and housing rights. The main identified problems include illegal (re-) occupation of properties, non-enforcement of demolition orders and compensation scheme by the Kosovo Property Comparison and Verification Agency (KPCVA), and limited access to sustainable social housing and land allocation opportunities for returns-related projects.”
According to the Center for Advocacy of Democratic Culture (ACDC) in North Mitrovica, it is impossible to determine the exact number of usurped property cases, since no unified registry exists—either for total cases or those resolved.
One figure available on the website of the Legal Aid Office in Belgrade points to at least 60,000 property claims made by displaced Serbs and members of other non-majority communities, whose homes were occupied, damaged, or destroyed.
“A number of these cases have been resolved in court, thanks to the efforts of the Legal Aid Office for displaced persons and refugees, which operates with EU support,” ACDC stated.
Massimo Moratti, former project manager at the Legal Aid Office in Belgrade, reminds that the issue stems from as far back as 2000, when the mandate of the UNMIK Housing and Property Directorate (HPD) did not include land rights:
“That type of property was left in limbo and couldn’t be protected. This led to irregular demolitions and construction on other people’s land, property seizures, and fraud.”
“Nearly 20 years after the end of the Kosovo conflict, despite substantial international assistance and targeted programs, large numbers of displaced persons both within and outside of Kosovo lack durable solutions that would enable them to live a stable life in dignity,” concludes the OSCE mission.
Returning to the Cities
Statistically, the highest number of returnees is recorded in the Pristina region (8,713), Pec (7,440), and Gnjilane (6,289). In reality, there is little room in these cities for returnees.
When Dragica Gašić returned alone to Djakovica, she faced harassment, threats, and pressure. Even the local vendor refused to sell her bread.
“I spoke with the Prime Minister about urban return, and we agreed on a town—Gnjilane. The municipality promised a plot of land, but unfortunately, due to technical delays and engineering challenges, we had to postpone,” explains Minister Rašić, adding:
“Such initiatives often face resistance from local or central opponents. That’s why we have to be cautious. We need to implement them in a way that avoids segregation or tensions.”
Despite these obstacles, the Ministry of Local Self-Government, in partnership with the organization “Balkan Orphans”, is building 200 homes in four northern municipalities. While some locals in Serb-majority areas see this as an attempt to alter the ethnic balance, Rašić clarifies that it’s a social housing project:
“The rule is that they must have ID cards registered in that municipality. But I don’t know whether they lived in rural areas and now want to move to towns. I wish more of our municipalities would apply—so that we, as Serbs, could also get more apartment buildings or housing.”
He points to the “Strategy for the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Communities and Their Members 2023–2027”, which aims to increase the number of returnees and support their sustainable reintegration, stabilize communities, promote continued economic development, ensure proportional employment in public administration, and strengthen language-use mechanisms for non-majority communities. But reality moves in the opposite direction.
Analyses paint a bleak picture:
A staggering 66% of citizens personally know someone who left Kosovo in 2024, according to Aktiv’s Trend Analysis within the Serbian community. In the north of the Ibar—70%, in the south—60%. School-age children make up 77% of those who left.
If given the opportunity, 52% would leave Kosovo in the next five years. Similar figures have been reported over the past five years, with two-thirds of those leaving being young people.
The reasons they cite include: political instability, violation of Serb rights in Kosovo, and personal safety concerns.
Has the policy of return been replaced by a policy of survival?
“Well said. The most important thing is to first, metaphorically, build walls for staying—and then, at a proper pace, open doors for returnees,” says Minister Rašić.
“I often say that the best advertisement for return is seeing that our citizens are living normal lives here. That way, those with family or friends here can see firsthand that returning can work.”
A Statistical Error in Policy
“It’s clear that a quarter of a century after the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement, return is statistically negligible—a massive failure, both of the international community and local institutions. Over 25 years, they have squandered a historic opportunity to bring the displaced home. Return never happened in urban centers, and among the few who did come back to rural areas, most are elderly, vulnerable, and without social care. All in all—devastating,” says Miodrag Milićević.
Even where young families return, the next generation ends up leaving.
“Because that’s a technical return—not true reintegration into society. The outlook is grim. What we’re witnessing is a silent exodus of Serbs from Kosovo,” concludes the executive director of NGO Aktiv.
In both Serb and Albanian traditions, once a house is roofed, a flag is raised on top.
In times when even flags are a point of contention, there is no doubt: Responsibility lies with both Belgrade and Pristina, agree Lulzim Peci, director of the Kosovo Institute for Policy Research and Development (KIPRED) in Pristina, and Milivoje Mihajlović, journalist and former head of the Media Center in Pristina.
“Resistance to the return of Serbs to Kosovo—both institutional and informal—stems from an unfinished transition from conflict to reconciliation. In that sense, the responsibility is twofold. On the institutional level, weaknesses in the rule of law and ethnic pressure on local authorities in returnee communities often hinder the enforcement of court rulings—especially in cases of usurped property,” says Lulzim Peci.
Still, he notes, “coexistence does function in most enclaves and in multiethnic urban centers south of the Ibar. But where return has been attempted outside those zones, it often remains merely symbolic.”
He concludes: “There can be no successful return process if one—or both—sides continue to avoid responsibility.”
“The Serbian List, although formally positioned as the political representative of Kosovo Serbs, has clearly not made the return of displaced persons a political priority—its primary focus has been on preserving parallel structures and maintaining political loyalty to Belgrade,” says Peci.
“While return is nominally among the Serbian List’s program goals, the party lacks any concrete policy or strategy on the issue—even though it held the ministry in charge of returns within the Kosovo government for nearly a decade. The Serbian List often chose a path of boycott, which further marginalized the return issue from Kosovo’s political agenda,” he explains.
A quarter-century after the war was supposed to be a time for healing wounds, fostering reintegration, and contributing to the normalization of ethnic relations, laying a foundation for new generations with no personal experience of coexistence.
But can Kosovo still be called multiethnic, given the treatment of its Serbian community?
“Kosovo is defined in its Constitution as a multiethnic society, with guaranteed rights for non-majority communities. However, in practice, this multiethnicity remains fragile and selective. It exists as a legal norm, but not yet as a full societal reality—for which much of the blame lies with the political calculations of both the Serbian and Kosovo governments, as well as certain media narratives that deepen divisions,” Peci stresses.
He argues that real change will require a “radical shift in approach—from a conflict-centered narrative to one of shared life, from weaponizing the past to envisioning a shared future—aimed at creating not just a political, but also a societal atmosphere in which Kosovo can become a sustainable multiethnic society.”
“However, I believe that moment is difficult to reach without a comprehensive normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. The reason is simple: there are deeply divergent interests and ambitions among the Serbian leadership, the Kosovo government, and Kosovo Serbs themselves—most of whom live caught between their expectations toward Serbia and the reality of daily life in independent Kosovo,” Peci concludes.
“There is clearly resistance from the authorities in Pristina toward the return of refugees. Even international missions, whose job is to stabilize conditions and bring life in Kosovo back to normal, have achieved no tangible results when it comes to return. Nor has the Serbian government made a real effort—despite claims in Belgrade that between half a billion and 800 million euros are sent to Kosovo each year. Where did that money go? It certainly wasn’t spent on helping the displaced return,” says journalist Milivoje Mihajlović.
He assesses:
“It seems that both Pristina and Belgrade authorities thrive on fueling ethnic hatred, and that drastically lowers the chances for multiethnic life in Kosovo. Another major factor is the strong influence of Albanian extremism on Kosovo’s political landscape. Under Kurti’s government, repression against Serbs has intensified. These are sources of instability that generate fear and uncertainty among Serbs, creating an environment in which return becomes impossible.”
Mihajlović notes that “based on textbooks and global experience from post-conflict zones, refugee return is realistically feasible only within the first six years after a conflict.”
“That was the case in Kosovo as well. Conditions were being created for displaced persons to return—until the March 17, 2004 pogrom, which completely halted the process. The goal of that organized violence was ethnic cleansing. The fear cultivated in both Belgrade and Pristina, the promotion of ethnic hatred, are the biggest obstacles to return. Until democratic governments are established on both sides and there is strong, credible international oversight, there will be neither a multiethnic Kosovo, nor a return of displaced Serbs,” he emphasizes.
More than two decades ago, the Dašić family rushed to return home—only to find a charred ruin. The hope they carried under a new roof was exhausted by twenty years marked by these issues and many other ones as well.
Yet, there was a difference. Back then, there was at least hope in the ashes.
This text was created as part of an initiative that strengthens intercultural cooperation between Kosovo and Serbia, which is financed by the European Union. The content of the text is the sole responsibility of the KoSSev portal and does not necessarily represent the views of the European Union or other collaborators on the project.
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
