You're aware Yugoslavia had an ethnic war not long after that right?

Yes, i still live here.

But being third world doesn't mean that everything is shitty and everything bad should be compared to that.

"third world" is often US shorthand for "the foreign places I don't know much about but the guys who live inside my TV tell me are bad"

If someone's using it to describe poor conditions (especially in their own country) you can just smile and move on safe in the knowledge that their contribution to the conversation isn't really worth spending much time thinking about