Human interest stories

Serbia is including refugees and asylum-seekers in its national vaccination rollout, with support from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency Serbia has commenced COVID-19 vaccinations for refugees and asylum seekers. On Friday, 53 people at an asylum centre near the capital,...

Young UN Volunteers Silvija, Kristina and Meti do their part in assisting their community to overcome the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic. Although with different educational background (music, medicine and literature) all three are members of the UN Volunteers cohort in Serbia with the mission of being link between the Roma community and governmental institutions.

“When they called to tell me that I had been issued documents, I was so happy that I burst into tears! People around me thought I didn’t feel well – that excited and full of joy was I.” Life has rarely been easy for Djuljana (27). At the tender age of seven, she...

Language learning has played a big role in Afsaneh’s life. As an Iranian, she grew up speaking Farsi. As an adult, she became an English teacher, and on arrival in Belgrade as a refugee in 2018 she started learning Serbian. Now she is putting her language skills to...

“Stefan is the Serbian name that I adopted, and everyone now calls me by it, even my friends who came here as refugees” says Dilsad* with a twinkle in his eye and in fluent Serbian. Talking to this teenager whose smile never seems to leave his face, one would hardly...

Spring arrived and the woods we are approaching appear in bloom. It is only when we stop – a lake and a park on the one side of the road and woods on the other – that we see that these woods are dotted with cardboard and plywood houses, buzzing with...

While 3000 participants meet in Geneva for the first Global Refugee Forum to pledge measure to enhance the local integration of refugees, here in Serbia, we can already enjoy some of its results, disguised as the most delicious pizza. Recently a business staffed...

“I liked the idea from the moment they told us the issues we would learn about,” says Mustafa *one of eight young men, all asylum seekers in various municipalities of Serbia, who now hold certificates as peer trainers on a range of complex yet pertinent topics. “Back...

Mawaheb Seraj, a refugee from Syria, used his head and followed his heart to find a new life in Serbia. Never unemployed throughout his long journey, he has secured a good job in a global company. He has married a Serbian artist, the woman of his dreams. And the cat...