Those who survived the best were people with family members sending regular money from other countries or who had jobs with international organizations, in the black market or petty trade. Even so, the majority of Kosovo people are forced to accept some form of food aid. But over the longer term, international officials predict, the future is far from bleak. But it's a tall order for people who have lived with repression, war, intolerance and breakdown of civil society for more than 10 years. Despite the presence of thousands of international and newly trained Kosovar police, lawlessness plagues Kosovo.
Police confiscate illegal weapons on a daily basis.
Those people who can afford them routinely buy and sell stolen cars, driving them without licences. Shipments of cigarettes are smuggled into Kosovo and sold cheaply, along with other goods that evade customs duties. Women are kidnapped, possibly to be enslaved as prostitutes. Ethnic violence continues without any apparent end in sight, and those who are driven away find that there property is seized by their oppressors. Even ordinary people who consider themselves middle class have scant respect for the law, a legacy of a time when authority was imposed by Serbia and, for Albanians, defying it was a patriotic duty.