Having weathered the Kosovo crisis in 1999, Macedonia was relatively stable throughout 2000. But in late February 2001, long-simmering ethnic tensions escalated and resulted in the flare-up of violence in Albanian-inhabited villages in the north of the country, close to the border with Kosovo.
ICG's reports on Macedonia have over the last years outlined strategies to support the country's hazardous transition process. Since early 2001, they have focused on ways of preventing the country's slide into full-blown war.