In contrast to south Serbia, Macedonia has witnessed tensions and surge of violence that threatens to cause a civil war. PHOTO- TASR/EPA
Maki Shinohara, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), estimated that more than 5,000 people had gone back home to the Presevo Valley region just east of U.N.-governed Kosovo.
The return of both peace and refugees to the remote and hilly region stands in contrast to the situation just across the border in Macedonia where five months of sporadic guerrilla warfare have displaced about 100,000 people. The rebel insurgency came to a largely peaceful end in late May, prompting many villagers to return.
The return movement to southern Serbia is also in contrast to the situation in Albanian-dominated Kosovo itself, where few Serbs have dared go back. Fearing revenge attacks, about 180,000 Serbs fled Kosovo after NATO-led troops took control of the province in June 1999 following three months of air strikes to halt Belgrade‘s repression of the Albanian majority there. Reuters
