Roma returnees to the Western Balkans

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Roma returnees to the Western Balkans

April 8, 2018

The recent arrival of more than one million refugees and migrants into the European Union (EU) has once again drawn attention to the number of migrants and asylum seekers from the Western Balkans. 

In the first three quarters of 2015 alone, Eurostat recorded 177,925 asylum applications made by persons arriving from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo*, and Serbia in EU/ European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries. Roma are “hidden” within these statistics.

Based on micronarratives, this report intends to present voices of Roma returning from the EU to the Western Balkans. Micronarratives are fragments of stories that people tell each other every day.

*All references to Kosovo shall be understood in the context of UN SC Resolution 1244/1999