No Place to Call Home. Repatriation from Germany to Kosovo as seen and experienced by Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian children

This report tries to provide answers to three specific questions: Have last year’s recommendations regarding repatriation practices being taken into account by the relevant German and Kosovo authorities? Have there been improvements in terms of policies and budgetary resources dedicated to reintegration? Has the promised assistance reached the families in need and helped them reintegrate in Kosovo? The results are sobering. There has been no real improvement in the lives of those repatriated Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians children portrayed in the study last year. With the exception of two girls, none of the other 49 school-aged children have been able to re-enter or continue school in Kosovo.  

The living conditions for many families actually worsened, especially among those who had received short-term reintegration assistance in the form of employment or rent subsidies last year and are now forced to cope without. Several families have lost their entitlement to social assistance; left without income, many of the families we met again this year barely manage to buy enough bread for one meal a day. Five families, including 15 children, have left Kosovo again. As was the case last year, most Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian children repatriated to Kosovo face a life on the margins, blighted by deprivation and poverty of opportunity.