At the time of the apparitions, the village of Medjugorje was in Bosnia and Herzegovina. part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a federation of various Slavic nations. There were tensions among the nations, exacerbated by religious difference: most Croats are Catholic, most Serbs are Eastern Orthodox, while the Bosnians and Herzegovinians are a mix of the two and included in the third group – the Bosnian Muslims. The death of President Josip Broz Tito a year before May 1980 had led to anti-communist backlash and the build up of ethnic tensions, destabililizing the country. Yugoslavia was moving towards political, economic, and national collapse. The political crisis generated the economic one and the public debt soared. The Albanian anti-Serb riots in Kosovo in 1981 were an example of national dissatisfaction. After Tito's death, the security apparatus enhanced its activities against the perceived "enemies of the state", especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the apparatus was most loyal to Tito. Such activity was especially oriented towards the Catholic Church in Herzegovina.