Neither Serb Nor Albanian: Life In The ‘Bosnian Quarter’ Of Kosovo’s Divided North

NORTH MITROVICA, Kosovo — Shopkeepers are soaking up the sun and people-watching in North Mitrovica’s Bosnian Quarter, a section of the city just northeast of the center.

Ethnic Albanians, Serbs, Roma, Egyptians, Turks and Gorans all call this neighborhood home, but the area takes its name from the Bosniaks, a minority from today’s Bosnia-Herzegovina, who settled here mostly during the Ottoman Empire.

In the years following the 1999 war, Kosovo’s Bosniaks, who speak a language similar to Serbian but are overwhelmingly Muslim, were the victims of targeted killings and attacks allegedly by ethnic Albanians who associated them with ethnic Serbs.

Today the Bosnian Quarter has lost a distinct measure of ethnic diversity amid newly heightened tensions. According to the Kosovo Police, the number of interethnic incidents in Kosovo in the first half of 2023 jumped by 45 percent compared to the same period last year.

Locals told RFE/RL that fewer than 10 percent of the Bosniaks of northern Kosovo who were here before the 1999 Kosovo War remain today.

“I don’t know where to point you, I can only see Albanians and Serbs,” said one of the business owners in the Bosnian Quarter, scanning the street after being asked if he knows any Bosniaks who live nearby.

When we find some Bosniaks, they are reluctant to speak, insisting that they “don’t want to get involved in politics.”

Bosniak shopkeepers selling clothes, food, household appliances, and other goods switch between the Albanian and Serbian languages depending on the ethnicity of the customers who approach.

Inside a cafe run by one Bosniak, four of the six tables are occupied by a single customer sipping on a drink or eating. The owner is unwilling to talk about the difficulties of life in a neighborhood riven with ethnic tensions. The cafe owner sends me off to another Bosniak in the neighborhood, but he doesn’t want to talk either.

The reluctance of people to speak doesn’t surprise Nexhat Uglanin, the chairman of the North Mitrovica Municipal Assembly. The Bosniak has lived his entire life in the quarter and has watched his hometown change.

“Citizens are still somewhat afraid. You can see that people are reluctant to give interviews because they are scared,” he told RFE/RL. “We’ve overcome different periods of escalation of the situation.”

As Nexhat speaks, cars passing by display license plates that hint at possible allegiance to either Kosovar or Serbian institutions. Taxis drive past with plates starting with the numerals 02, indicating registration in Kosovo’s Mitrovica, while other cars pass with stickers covering Serbian emblems – their owners likely to be Kosovar Serbs who registered their cars with Belgrade’s institutions.

Here and elsewhere in the north of Kosovo, tensions have frequently flared, largely due to ethnic Serbs pushing back against Pristina’s control over the region. In the Bosnian Quarter, the impact of some of these historic tensions are still apparent.

In the summer of 2010, ethnic Serbs protested against the opening of a Kosovar government office in the Bosnian Quarter. Amid the unrest, Bosniak doctor Mesud Gjekovic was killed in an explosion. A street in the neighborhood now bears his name.

Uglanin says that even in the calm periods between headline-grabbing unrest, citizens of different ethnic communities are somewhat on edge.

“Every day is the same. We have neighbors from every ethnicity and we manage to coexist,” he said. “But, it’s interesting to see when ethnic tensions escalate, they all close their shutters and wait a week until normality returns.”

Uglanin says that before the war in 1999, there were about 7,500 Bosniaks living in the north of Kosovo, while now only about 500 remain. They left for security reasons, because “they don’t want to live in a place where there are constant escalations and sirens.”

There are no exact official figures regarding the population in North Mitrovica. Ethnic Serbs boycotted the last population census in 2011.

The latest unrest took place on September 24, when a Kosovar policeman was killed in the village of Banjska after an attack by an armed group against the police patrol.

In the ensuing shoot-out, three ethnic Serb attackers were also killed. Responsibility for the attack was apparently admitted by Millan Radoicic, the former vice president of Serbian List, a Kosovar Serb political party.

The Banjska shooting has led to fewer people seen walking the streets, and less “interaction between communities” in the Bosnian Quarter, Uglanin said.

In the residential streets of the Bosnian Quarter, there are few children outside, except for a handful passing by on rollerblades and scooters.

Many children of the non-Serbian communities of the neighborhood travel each morning to South Mitrovica to attend school. Others go to schools in the north that operate under Belgrade’s institutions.

Muharrem Spasol, from Kosovo’s ethnic Ashkali Egyptian community, was standing next to the burned remains of his house when we met him on October 11.

His family home had been gutted by fire the night before. It was unclear what caused the blaze, but the results were starkly obvious. He was now without a home, and his brother had suffered burns.

Spasol has lived in North Mitrovica for 70 years. He and his family remained there through the Kosovo War and the ethnic tensions that simmered afterward. Always, he says, they have tried to avoid trouble.

“We’ve never had problems with anyone, neither Albanians or Serbs,” Spasol said. “We don’t get involved in politics. We have nowhere else to go, we only want to live in peace. Let us all be the same, let no one have problems.”

He remembers when trucks barricaded streets in the Bosnian Quarter amid tensions over the arrest of a Kosovar Serb policeman on December 27, 2022. Such situations make it hard to simply “avoid problems,” Spasol said.

“It’s a bit difficult…. There are problems everywhere, everywhere,” he said. “We are rather afraid. But we’re hanging on, we’re staying quiet. What else can we do?!”

But despite the many problems faced by the residents of this area of North Mitrovica, many of them, including Nexhat Uglanin would never leave.

“Life is very interesting in the north [of Kosovo]. Maybe it’s difficult, but it’s also interesting,” Uglanin said.