Asylum applications from nationals of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have dropped for the second consecutive year. In 2001 3,190 people applied for asylum from FRY nations. In 1999 the figure was more than 9,000.
Less than 200 people from FRY were allowed to stay in the UK by the government in 2001.
Country background: FRY hosts over half a million refugees who fled the 1990s Balkan conflict and, more recently, another 230,000 persons who were internally displaced by the war in Kosovo in 1999.
After the 1999 Nato airstrikes against the Yugoslav government about 850,000 Kosovan Albanians fled a campaign of ethnic cleansing by Serb forces. A peace agreement was signed in June 1999 and many thousands of those who fled have since returned.
As a result the number of asylum applications from this region has declined considerably. But the situation in some areas remains volatile and members of the Serb community have been targeted in Kosovo and Southern Serbia.
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