Municipality of Leposavic asks displaced families to return apartment keys: “They say we have too much”

Displaced families who moved into apartments last November—built with funding from the Government of Serbia through the Office for Kosovo and Metohija—are now receiving calls from the Municipality of Leposavic, led by Albanian mayor Lulzim Hetemi, to return the keys and vacate their homes.

The apartments were handed over to 40 families on November 1 last year by Sladjan Radosavljevic from the Serbian Commissariat for Refugees. However, municipal authorities are now requesting that the keys be returned, claiming the families are not entitled to the apartments because they allegedly already own homes or apartments in Leposavic.

Aleksandra Subotic, a displaced person from Urosevac who received an apartment along with her mother, two brothers, and two nephews, said she was contacted by the municipality this morning and asked to return the keys—an order she refused.

"I received such a call this morning but refused because they weren’t the ones who gave us the apartment in the first place. I told them to come to the collective center and take the key themselves. They said I have no right to the apartment because I allegedly own one somewhere in Leposavic. If that were true, I wouldn’t be living in a collective center. We want the authorities to hear about our problem and for our state to do everything in its power to protect us," Subotic said.

In addition to the Subotic family, Eva Adzic, a displaced person from Croatia, also received a call to return the keys.

"We received the apartment and fixed it up, not knowing they would ask us to give it back. When they invited us to the municipal office, Marina Bogojevic—the deputy mayor—called me. I thought it was about our residency permit. When I arrived, she told me that we had broken in and occupied the apartments, even though we had been given the keys. The next day, she called all the tenants to come and sign something. When I asked what it was, she said the apartments were being taken from us. She claimed we 'already have too much,' even though we’ve had nothing and have been living in a collective center for 30 years," Adzic said.

She added that the document they were asked to sign incorrectly listed her as the owner instead of her daughter.

"When I asked about it, she told me to just move in with my daughter, who lives in a one-bedroom apartment in the same building with her three children. She said they were taking this apartment away from us. At that moment, a UNHCR official called and asked me to sign and return the keys, warning that if I didn’t, I’d be left with nothing," she added.

Municipal staff, who had allegedly agreed to come to the collective center to retrieve the keys, passed by the entrance, turned around, and left—without taking any action.

In addition to the buildings in Leposavic, housing for displaced persons has also been built in Lesak and Socanica, funded by the Serbian Government and the Office for Kosovo and Metohija.