Historical background and causes of displacement
Relations between Serbs and Albanians in recent decades have been shaped by the dispute over the status of Kosovo.[1] From its position within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Socialist Yugoslavia), when Kosovo and Metohija was one of two autonomous provinces of the Republic of Serbia, through the 1990s conflict, and finally the 2008 declaration of Kosovo independence, this issue has been marked by high tension, massive migration, and long-lasting political confrontation.
During Socialist Yugoslavia, the state leadership sought to provide broad autonomy to the majority Albanian population in Kosovo. However, this fueled tensions and led to the departure of a significant number of Serbs and Montenegrins, reducing their share in the population and deepening mistrust between ethnic communities.
With the rise of Slobodan Milošević’s regime in the early 1990s, the situation shifted dramatically. Albanians faced systemic repression and discrimination, losing access to institutions, jobs, education, and social welfare. This initially gave rise to their passive resistance, but mounting frustration and state pressure soon escalated into armed opposition. From 1997 onward, open clashes broke out between Serbian military and police forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
The conflict escalated into full-scale war in 1998–1999, culminating in NATO intervention from March to June 1999. The war left more than 13,000 dead and displaced hundreds of thousands of people, profoundly changing Kosovo’s demographic and political landscape. Since then, waves of violence and unrest have continued to drive people from their homes. Roughly 210,000 people, mostly Serbs, left Kosovo for Serbia after the war and the 2004 riots. The 2008 unilateral declaration of Kosovo independence was a turning point — recognized by most EU states, but firmly rejected by Belgrade, which still views it as a violation of international law.
At the time when the issue of internal displacement emerged in Serbia, around 600,000 refugees had already fled there, mainly from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a result of the civil war and massive conflicts. The Serbian Commissariat for Refugees, established in 1992, supported refugees, in cooperation with international organisations and foreign governments, with the primary aim of enabling them to obtain Serbian citizenship and settle down. Internally displaced persons (IDPs), on the other hand, were the primary responsibility of the Serbian Government, which prioritised IDP return to Kosovo, rather than local integration, reflecting the government’s goal of maintaining Kosovo as an autonomous province within Serbia, inhabited by Serbians. Many IDPs were reluctant to return but also unable to make a living in Serbia, so they left and obtained temporary protection in various European countries. However, they started to be returned to Serbia in greater numbers from 2007 onwards when Serbia signed readmission agreements with the European Union, only to find themselves in a more complicated situation than before they left. Soon afterwards, migrants from the region of the Middle East and North Africa started transiting through Serbia, peaking in 2015 with an estimated one million of them passing through the Western Balkans route in the period June 2015 to March 2016. Ever since 2015, public resources, along with overall European attention, have been diverted to supporting the transit of MENA migrants. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has produced additional refugees in Serbia, further overshadowing the situation of Serbian IDPs.
Life in internal displacement in Serbia
Once granted IDP status, people from Kosovo have become declaratively equal to all other Serbian citizens in terms of their rights and obligations. Since they are Serbian citizens, there is no separate law regulating their rights and obligations. Nevertheless, they are recognized in specific laws (e.g. those regulating social welfare, employment, healthcare, etc.) as a group entitled to certain benefits and services.
However, their equality is widely disputed, and, more often than not, they are socially excluded. One of the first barriers preventing IDPs from achieving equality is the frequent lack of any personal documents, such as identity cards, birth certificates, etc. There are various reasons why they do not have those documents. In some cases, it is difficult for them to obtain documents from the Kosovo authorities, and sometimes the Serbian authorities do not officially recognize their residency in Serbia. The latter is especially difficult for Roma IDPs who often lack a registered residence address. Furthermore, if IDPs have, in parallel, a registered displacement in Serbia and a registered residence in Kosovo, they have to renew their status of displacement every two years through a rather complex and time-consuming procedure.
Bureaucratic-administrative procedures thus rule over their lives. The dispossession of personal documents effectively disables them from effectuating any right in Serbia, whether economic, social, or political. According to their own views, even free legal aid is stipulated in the regulations in such a way that it is not appropriate for the complex legal problems faced by IDPs (Trifković et al, 2020). This challenging situation regarding personal documents, effectively rendering IDPs invisible in society, is long-term in nature and has affected the majority of IDPs, at least to some extent.
Unsurprisingly, IDPs are worse off than the average Serbian citizen. The most recent large-scale survey of IDPs’ living conditions, which took into account the UNHCR’s criteria of vulnerability, was published in 2018 by the Commissariat for Migration and Refugees of the Republic of Serbia. It reported that almost 70,000 IDPs were socially vulnerable and/or in need of support, over one third of the 199,584 registered IDPs were unemployed, and many were dependent on social welfare. A small-scale study conducted by Cvejic in 2014 found that IDPs of Roma ethnicity were particularly affected, often engaging in seasonal or informal employment and living in substandard settlements without access to basic utilities. Housing is a particular challenge for IDPs in general – many lack property ownership and live in inadequate conditions or even still in public camps (Commissariat for Refugees and Migration, 2020).
In Serbia, the public views of IDPs are sometimes characterised by stereotypes. IDPs are often viewed as profiting from displacement, with the domestic population in Serbia nurturing the discourse that IDPs are becoming rich by selling their property in Kosovo. This has some significant and damaging consequences. Firstly, because they fled Kosovo, they are not seen as patriots and ‘defenders’ of Kosovo – the ‘cradle of Serbia’ and/or the ‘Serbian Holy Land’. They are even equated with Albanians, pejoratively labelled as ‘Kosovars‘ and ‘Shiptars’. Secondly, they are seen as cheaters and abusers of the system, who ask for public support that they do not actually need. This discourse is frequently used in the social welfare system, where they are blamed for their simultaneous informal employment and social welfare dependency, even though neither income source alone is enough to make a living. In the same vein, they are accused of taking jobs away from the domestic population.
On top of this, IDPs of Roma and Goran ethnicity are exposed to additional and intersecting stereotypes. Recent qualitative research, which explored everyday lives, personal stories and trajectories with a focus on IDPs’ sense of belonging and their perception of “home”, confirmed the existence of all of the abovementioned hardships (Surlić, Perišić, and Birmančević, 2025). Nevertheless, the critical importance of a high adaptive capacity among them, along with the reliance on personal strengths to overcome life’s adversities, was one of the most important findings of the research.
Integration vs. return: Dilemmas and limited opportunities
After the end of the war in Kosovo, the Serbian Government, along with international organisations, initiated programmes aimed at reintegrating IDPs into society. The Government adopted and implemented four strategies over 22 years (in 2002, 2010, 2015, and finally 2024) in order to address the challenges faced by IDPs, while many sectoral strategies have recognised IDPs as a group targeted for empowering and protection interventions. The Government has been prioritising the return of IDPs to their communities of origin (i.e., Kosovo and Metohija), whereas the integration into local communities in Serbia is secondary. There has been an institutional infrastructure underpinning the Government’s strategic orientations in the form of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija (which was a ministry-level body before 2012) and the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration. The Office is in charge of supporting the Serbian community in Kosovo, through facilitating their return, among other things. The Commissariat for Refugees and Migration, which is responsible for supporting migrants in general, including IDPs, has been collaborating with trustees for migration at the level of local communities, offering subsidisied housing solutions, often funded by the European Union, to IDPs who have decided to stay in Serbia.
Despite Serbia’s political orientation toward facilitating the return of IDPs, the primary responsibility to enable such returns fundamentally lies with the Kosovo authorities — yet this obligation has largely gone unmet. Empirical and institutional evidence points to a persistent lack of commitment on the part of Kosovo’s Government to create sufficient conditions for sustainable return. For instance, the 2015 European Commission Progress Report critically noted that local and central authorities in Kosovo “did not do enough to facilitate return and reintegration of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs),“ identifying poor coordination, continued illegal occupation of property, lack of reliable data on returnees, and minimal political will and funding as key obstacles (European Commission, n/d).
Longitudinal monitoring also demonstrates that voluntary return remains extremely limited. According to the OSCE, by the end of 2018, only 28,111 individuals had returned—which represents a small fraction of the estimated 220,000 or more displaced people following the 1998–1999 conflict and the 2004 unrest—while annual returns continued to decline (802 in 2015; 582 in 2016; 498 in 2017; 327 in 2018). The most recent data, those for 2024, show that out of 194,171 IDPs, only 66 returned to Kosovo (Commissariat for Refugees and Migration, 2024). These stark figures, which show a relatively consistent trend that has continued for decades, underscore the absence of a viable reintegration framework and the failure of Kosovo authorities to reverse the trend of protracted displacement.
There are both objective and subjective factors underpinning the decisions of individuals to return to Kosovo or stay in Serbia. The objective dimension relates to “hard” data – current material conditions and overall well-being, along with future prospects in Serbia for IDPs and their families, in combination with the perceived situation in Kosovo, including the implementation of economic, social, and political rights. Serbia has higher economic growth and appears to offer greater economic opportunities compared with Kosovo, which can be more in line with the IDPs’ conventional sense of living a decent life. Also, IDPs seem to see the Serbian authorities as guarantors of their security, and the withdrawal of Serbian institutions from Kosovo, which has been on the scene for some time, does not offer good prospects for a peaceful life. A ghetto-like life for the Serbian community in Kosovo was tolerated by Serbians there due to fear of violent activities against them conducted both by the Kosovo authorities and individuals. Structural shortcomings extend beyond administrative obstacles to include security concerns and social resistance. The OSCE’s assessment underscores that security incidents, community opposition, and unresolved property rights continue to deter returnees—and that municipal-level implementation of reintegration commitments remains uneven (OSCE, 2019; European Commission, n/d). The subjective dimension relates to “soft” data – clearly, it is this sense of security as opposed to risks to life. The sense of belonging in Kosovo does not have to be erased by uprooting. Still, since the displacement has already lasted for 25 years,, IDPs clearly have developed their aspirations for life in Serbia, not to mention younger family members who might have never lived in Kosovo.
It is interesting that, as the academic commentary highlights, Kosovo has never conducted a comprehensive survey of IDPs, resulting in unreliable data and a risk that many displaced individuals remain invisible , without access to services or protection (Toropenko, 2021). Together, these findings illustrate that, despite Serbia’s strategic discourse on enabling return, the substantive duty to offer a credible return prospect rests with Kosovo’s institutions, which have not delivered. In effect, Kosovo’s IDP population remains stalled in displacement, not only due to the political impasse but also a lack of tangible, sustainable opportunities orchestrated by Pristina.
What will the future bring?
The condition of IDPs in Serbia is a striking example of how unresolved political disputes shape the everyday realities of vulnerable groups. While IDPs formally possess Serbian citizenship and are in principle equal to other citizens, they remain institutionally and socially marked by their displacement status. This enduring categorisation cannot be explained solely through bureaucratic or socio-economic shortcomings; rather, it reflects Serbia’s broader political position regarding Kosovo. The unresolved dispute between Belgrade and Pristina has transformed IDPs into a symbolic resource for state politics: IDPs function as a living testimony to Serbia’s claim of sovereignty over Kosovo and as evidence that the question of Kosovo’s status remains open.
As a result, IDPs in Serbia inhabit a paradoxical position. On the one hand, they are citizens with access to certain rights and entitlements; on the other hand, they are suspended in a condition of “permanent temporariness,” where their integration is systematically deferred in the name of an eventual return that is politically desired but practically unattainable. This liminal status exposes them to exclusion, stigmatisation, and vulnerability, particularly for marginalized groups, such as Roma IDPs, while simultaneously reducing their prospects for full participation in the Serbian society.
Seen through this lens, IDPs are not only individuals struggling with everyday legal, social, and economic barriers but also political subjects instrumentalised within the symbolic arena of statehood and sovereignty. Their unresolved situation underscores the limits of post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation in the Western Balkans, where protracted disputes over status and identity continue to hinder durable solutions. The challenge, therefore, is not only to design policies that improve the living conditions of IDPs but also to address the structural political factors that perpetuate their exclusion and prolong their displacement.
Stefan Surlić is an Assistant Professor of comparative politics at the University of Belgrade (Faculty of Political Science, Department for Political Science). His primary research interests are in the fields of ethnicity, post-conflict and ethnically divided societies, and democratization processes.
Natalija Perišić is a Full Professor of social policy at the University of Belgrade (Faculty of Political Science, Department for Social Policy and Social Work). Her primary research interests are in the fields of welfare state, migration, and ageing.
KEYWORDS: IDPs, Internal Displacement, Serbia, Kosovo, Conflict
Selected bibliography
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[1] This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence. It applies to all references to Kosovo in this document.