27 August 2010 | Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia are marking the birthday of Mother Teresa, born 100 years ago in Skopje.

Events commemorating her biological birthday on August 26, her official birthday on August 27 (when she was baptised) and the day she died, September 5, are planned in all three countries.

Major roads, airports and public buildings across the region bear her name and cities, including Tirana, Skopje and Pristina, have statues of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning nun.

In Mother Teresa’s birth town, the Macedonian capital of Skopje, the authorities are to stage 100 events to mark the special day.

Kosovo’s president Fatmir Sejdiu had earlier dedicated 2010 to the anniversary, with 25 major events scheduled.

The culmination of the events in Kosovo will occur on September 5, the anniversary of her death in 1997, when the new Mother Teresa Catholic Cathedral in Pristina will be inaugurated.

Albania on Thursday also marked the 100th birthday with a series of culture activities and religious sermons in her remembrance.

Mother Teresa moved to Calcutta in India in 1929, where she remained until her death in 1997 helping the poor. She was posthumously beatified by the Vatican in 2003.

She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her work to alleviate the suffering of the sick, poor and dying.

Born in Üsküb, today’s Skopje, in the Ottoman Empire, the ethnic Albanian was the youngest child of her family from Shkoder, Albania.

But some claim her father was from Prizren in Kosovo and her mother from a village near Gjakova in the same state.

This article is courtesy of Balkan Insight, the online publication of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, which contains analytical reports, in-depth analyses and investigations and news items from throughout the region covering major challenges of the political, social and economic transition in the Balkans.