(ANSA-AFP) - PRISTINA, APR 5 - Kosovo authorities on Friday
began carrying out the country's first census in over a decade,
amid simmering tensions with the ethnic Serb community and
uncertainty over their participation in the count. Census counts
are delicate matters in many Balkan countries, where plunging
birth rates, mass migration and ethnic tensions undercut efforts
to provide accurate population figures. Kosovo officials have
repeatedly delayed earlier counts. The Kosovo Statistics Agency
(ASK) has conducted just one other count, in 2011, which was
boycotted by the Serbs. That census put Kosovo's population at
1.8 million people. (ANSA-AFP).
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