Ljubinka, 54, left, with her son David in front of their house in Serbia, which was provided by the Regional Housing Programme, a joint initiative to support refugees and displaced people from the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. ©UNHCR/Imre Szabo
Just hours before the bombing started in the town of Benkovac, Croatia in the summer of 1995, Ljubinka, then 25, her 1-year-old son, and a couple of friends managed to flee the country. After several days on the run, Ljubinka was able to reunite with her husband and parents in the neighbouring country of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
However, as the weeks passed, the family realized they would not be able to return home. So when aid workers offered them a ride to Serbia, they accepted. Ljubinka and her family ended up in a suburb of Belgrade where they stayed with relatives who were living there.
“This period [of our lives] was extremely difficult and stressful. It was a completely new environment; everything was so overwhelming. Never had I imagined I would have to leave my hometown”, Ljubinka recalls.
In 2001, her husband found a job, which allowed them to rent a damp basement flat in Novi Banovci, a village located close to the Danube River, some 20km from Belgrade. “We stayed there for the next 20 years and were unable to afford better accommodation, even though we saved every penny we earned.”
“The community welcomed us though, and we slowly weaved the threads of our new lives here. Then our long-awaited second son David was born”, she says. He is now in the sixth grade at the local school where he enjoys learning the French language and playing football.
In 2016, Ljubinka took out a bank loan and bought five acres of land on the outskirts of their adopted village in Serbia. When the Serbian government announced a call for housing solutions named the Regional Housing Programme (RHP), Ljubinka and her husband prepared the necessary documents and applied for their new home.
“The selection process of the RHP was long, but we persisted so that we could be considered eligible for a pre-constructed house. When it was approved, we were overjoyed. The construction went quickly, and we finally moved in in early 2022”, says Ljubinka with a smile.
“The house is everything I wished for. I even have a garden where I’ve planted flowers. This is my oasis, where I feel happy and at peace.”
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