I was checking out the euros recently and read about the conflict between Serbia and Albania Croatia. Can I get a simplified explanation for this
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Its a long issue.
On one side:
In the 1870 there were forced migration/expulsion of Albanians from lands that Serbia took.
In the 1910’s during the Balkan Wars, Serbians massacred large numbers of Albanians as part of its attempt to expand its border along the Adriatic Sea.
In the Yugoslav wars (~1990’s), Serbia committed so many war crimes/civilian massacres I can’t even list them all here, many against ethnically Albanian people in Kosovo: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbia_in_the_Yugoslav_Wars#War_crimes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbia_in_the_Yugoslav_Wars#War_crimes)
Kosovo (full of ethnically Albanians) declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and Serbia wasn’t the nicest about that but avoided the full on genocide they have previously done
On the other side:
Serbians find it offensive when Albanians do a double eagle hand signal similar to the Eagle on their flag: [https://www.horizonte-magazin.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/ho135-doppeladler-gegen-vorurteile-1170×780-1.jpg](https://www.horizonte-magazin.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/ho135-doppeladler-gegen-vorurteile-1170×780-1.jpg) . Recently in the Euro cup Croatian/Albanian fans chanted something along the lines of “Kill the Serb”.
TLDR: Serbia massacred/attempted genocide against Albanians multiple times over many generations. Albanians didn’t like that.
Albanians sometimes do a national pride hand signal and chant things about not liking Serbia because of the whole genocide things and Serbians feel as bad about that as Albanians do about the multiple attempted genocides and try to play the victim.
Serbians are predominantly Orthodox Christians. Croatians are predominantly Catholic Christians. Albanians are predominantly Muslim. Kosovo is predominantly ethnically Albanian.
Kosovo, Serbia and Croatia were all once part of Yugoslavia, where Serbians were the majority and dominant group. When Yugoslavia split apart in 1991, the various religious and ethnic groups had a bloody civil war. Many atroicities occured during the war.
Kosovo wanted independence from Serbia and this led to a continuation of the civil war in 1999.
There is therefore not much love lost between Albania and Serbia; or Croatia and Serbia.
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