The Kosovo Roma Rights Coalition (KRRC) is a broad coalition of organisations of Roma refugees in many European countries. The KRRC has commissioned two American human rights lawyers to begin negotiations with the Kosovo government. The government has been asked to provide a date for the talks in Brussels by mid-April. Background to the negotiations: Thousands of Roma homes had been set on fire and looted and people displaced in the ethnic cleansing that followed the Kosovo war.

According to exile groups, 90 per cent of the Roma were driven out of Kosovo at gunpoint in 1999. The ethnic cleansing of the Roma included torture, rape, murder and mass looting and destruction, which international troops stationed there stood idly by. By March 2000, some 15,000 Roma homes had been destroyed. After the expulsion of 150,000 Roma from Kosovo, the remaining houses and properties were occupied by the majority population.

Today, the expelled Roma and their children live scattered throughout Europe and continue to face difficulties. Some are still threatened with deportation. Attempts to seek justice in the past have failed. With a new Kosovo government seeking to join the European Union and several former Kosovo Albanian politicians facing trial in The Hague, a settlement of Roma claims is increasingly likely, the KRRC said.

Link: https://romaworld.rs/9701-2/?fbclid=IwAR3eaJNuBEyiPAwrsAih4ka9yGc8PEc2I2plgLdB0HfD6WlIuQQFEo4OTAI

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