'Shattered spirits': Young and able leave Western Balkans in droves, Macedonian census shows
The Western Balkans is facing an emigration crisis.
This is particularly evident in North Macedonia, as its most recent census shows.
The country has shed at least ten percent of its two million people since the last census in 2002, the latest numbers revealed.
Abysmal economic growth and a lack of investment have clobbered the country, now home to just 1.8 million people, in its 30 years of independence.
Villages and small towns such as Valandovo, 146 kilometres from the capital of Skopje, offer few jobs, pushing the ambitious and able to search for work and settle elsewhere.
"Five of my friends from our class of 20 students have already moved abroad with their families," said Bojan Nikolov, 24, a member of the town’s youth municipal council.
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