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OSCE starts to take up its role in census in southern Serbia
BELGRADE 5 April 2002
BELGRADE, 5 April 2002 - Representatives of the OSCE Mission to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) have arrived in the municipalities of Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja and have started to take up their duties related to the census that is presently being carried out by the Republican Bureau of Statistics.
OSCE staff members will follow the work of the municipal census commissions in the municipality buildings in Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja and join the government's mobile teams of census-takers that go from door to door in the region of their responsibility in order to collect the relevant data.
Ambassador Stefano Sannino, the Head of the OSCE Mission to the FRY, has stated that "the decision to send in small teams of international staff members complemented by experienced local staff follows the request made by both the Serbian authorities and representatives of the Albanian community in southern Serbia for the OSCE to facilitate and assist the census process".
"Starting from the belief that the relevant authorities have at their disposal all the required means and instruments to carry out this nation-wide census, the assistance provided by the OSCE must be seen as a confidence-building measure, and is part of the broader and longer-term involvement of the OSCE in southern Serbia, aimed at building confidence which is to the benefit of all the ethnic communities that live in the area", said Ambassador Sannino.
OSCE staff members will follow the work of the municipal census commissions in the municipality buildings in Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja and join the government's mobile teams of census-takers that go from door to door in the region of their responsibility in order to collect the relevant data.
Ambassador Stefano Sannino, the Head of the OSCE Mission to the FRY, has stated that "the decision to send in small teams of international staff members complemented by experienced local staff follows the request made by both the Serbian authorities and representatives of the Albanian community in southern Serbia for the OSCE to facilitate and assist the census process".
"Starting from the belief that the relevant authorities have at their disposal all the required means and instruments to carry out this nation-wide census, the assistance provided by the OSCE must be seen as a confidence-building measure, and is part of the broader and longer-term involvement of the OSCE in southern Serbia, aimed at building confidence which is to the benefit of all the ethnic communities that live in the area", said Ambassador Sannino.