Refugees camp northwest of Kukës, near Tirana, Albania (N 42°08' E 20°22').
Originally uploaded by anthonyngo
Kosovo, a province of Serbia, is home to a population that is 90 percent Albanian. In late March 1999, in response to Serbia’s longstanding policy to ethnically cleanse” the region of all Albanians, NATO (North American Treaty Organization) began a military action of intense bombing against Serbia. The Serbian police and army responded by systematically forcing the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Kosovars, a process of removal that had already been underway before the bombings. Accepted under emergency measures by bordering countries (principally Albania and Macedonia), the refugees were encamped in canvas tents. In the past 50 years more than 50 million people in the world have been victims of forced exile. During the 1990s the number of civil wars increased dramatically, accompanied by the greatest population movements since 1945. Iran and Pakistan, neighbors of Afghanistan, have received 3.5 million Afghans who have fled their homeland because of a series of conflicts since 1979—the latest is the NATO-backed bombing by U.S. and British forces in response to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
