Country: Bosnia
Group: Roma
Date Finalized: 2/28/21
Team: Colleen Clauss (lead), Therin Carr, Ann Thomas
Content Warning: slavery, discrimination, forced relocation, war
Approximate Time Period: 1940-1945, 1992-1995, 2014
There is strong evidence that the Roma people in Bosnia had been displaced by German authorities and Nazis. The evidence is rated as a 3.
The Roma are an ethnic group that migrated from India to Europe more than 1,000 years ago (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum [USHMM], n.d.). Since then, they have been enslaved, discriminated against, and evicted across Europe (USHMM, n.d.). During World War II, the Nazis in Germany labeled the Roma to be “racially inferior,” murdering tens of thousands and forcing others into labor camps and prisons (USHMM, n.d.). This took place in Serbia, Croatia, Poland, and may have also affected the territory that is now Bosnia and Herzegovina (USHMM, n.d.). Within Bosnia and Herzegovnia, the Roma are subject to more discrimination than any other group (Minority Rights Group [MRG], 2015). Estimates of their population size in the country vary between 20,000 and 50,000 individuals (MRG, 2015). Before the 1992 to 1995 Bosnian War, many Roma people lived in the region called the Republika Srpska (MRG, 2015). During the war, a large proportion of the Roma people became refugees or were internally displaced (MRG, 2015). Since many of the Roma move often and lack legal identification, they are particularly vulnerable to displacement and aren’t registered in the official counts of internally displaced persons (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre [IDMC], 2014). Most are still unable to return to their homes from before the war and live in informal, impoverished conditions, with little or no government assistance (MRG, 2015; IDPP, 2004). These housing conditions leave the Roma even more susceptible to natural hazards, and in May of 2014 alone, flooding and landslides displaced over a thousand Roma families (IDMC, 2014).
Several reliable sources agree that the Roma people have suffered widespread displacement, but few statistics document the extent of this. The data quality is rated as a 3.
Sources
- Internally Displaced Persons Project. (2004). Trapped in Displacement: Internally Displaced People in the OSCE Area. Norwegian Refugee Council. Retrieved from https://www.internal-displacement.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/2004-eu-trapped-in-displacement-country-en.pdf.
- Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. (2014). Bosnia and Herzegovina: Ethno-political agendas still prolonging displacement. Norwegian Refugee Council. Retrieved from https://www.internal-displacement.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/201411-eu-bosnia-overview-en.pdf.
- Minority Rights Group. (2015, June). Roma. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/roma-3/.
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (n.d.). Genocide of European Roma (Gypsies), 1939–1945. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved April 28, 2021, from https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/genocide-of-european-roma-gypsies-1939-1945