At a ceremony at the Palace of Serbia on 30 october, the contracts for 71 purchased Regional Housing Programme (RHP) apartments in the municipality of Belgrade were awarded to refugee families from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Croatia. The RHP will come to an end in December 2023, by which time approximately 11 300 families – or close to 36 000 persons – will have received secure homes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia after almost three decades of displacement.

The ceremony was hosted by Nataša Stanisavljević, Commissioner for Refugees and Migration of the Republic of Serbia (KIRS), and attended by Milos Vučević, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the Republic of Serbia; H.E. Emanuele Giaufret, Head of the European Union Delegation to Serbia; Richard Kohli, Head of Cooperation at the Embassy of Switzerland; Christian Schilling, Head of Development Cooperation at the Embassy of Germany; Aleksandar Šapić, Mayor of Belgrade; Soufiane Adjali, UNHCR Representative in Serbia; Zoltan Kubik, representative of the Embassy of Hungary; Augusta Featherston, representative of the OSCE Mission in Serbia; and Dušan Kovačević, Head of the Public Sector Projects Implementation Unit Ltd, amongst others.