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Kosovo Roma Rights Coalition

The Kosovo Roma Rights Coalition (KRRC) is a broad coalition of organizations of Roma refugees in many European countries. The KRRC has commissioned two American human rights lawyers to start negotiations with the Kosovar government. The government has so far refused the dialogue. 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, at least 90 per cent of Roma were expelled from Kosovo at gunpoint in 1999 after living there for more than 600 years. The ethnic cleansing against 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 displaced Roma and their children live scattered throughout Europe and continue to face difficulties. Some are still threatened with deportation. Attempts to obtain justice in the past have failed. Currently, several former Kosovo Albanian politicians are facing trial in The Hague. Among them is the man who was Kosovo’s president until 2020.

Kosovo wants to join the European Union. The rights of Kosovo’s Roma must play a decisive role in the accession negotiations.

This includes not only the Roma who remain in Kosovo, but above all the Roma who have been expelled from Kosovo and live in the diaspora, because they are the absolute majority of Kosovo’s Roma.
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Roma who have problems getting their property (houses, land, etc.) back in Kosovo can fill in the form on our website. www.krrc.eu