The official statistics of the Albanian government (early 1990s) placed the Montenegrin community at 100, as some Albanian government officials stated that those numbers were accurate due to 700 of them leaving Albania during the democratisation process. The Association of Montenegrins (AM), a social-cultural organisation founded in Vraka claimed some 1,000 members that represented the interests of a community of 2,500 people located in Shkodër and the surrounding area. AM during that time urged the Albanian government to recognise the Montenegrin and Serb communities in Albania and allow certain linguistic, education, cultural and other rights. In 1999 the Helsinki Committee for Human rights in Albania conducted surveys of the Shkodër region and estimated that there were some 1800-2000 Serbian-speakers in the area. In 2000, the Albanian Helsinki Committee estimated that there were ca. 2,000 "Serb–Montenegrin" people in Albania.