Since Kodra Minatorëve/Mikronaselije district in Mitrovica is like a “town in a town”, with the ethnic specificity to be an Albanian area in a Serbian city, it’s poorly connected with Albanian majority Central Kosovo, like Serbian enclaves in Central Kosovo are very hardly connected with Mitrovica. The public transportation serves the area by bus, but, if the situation is tense, the bus stops circulating. Close to the Main Bridge, the “Three Towers”, with a mixed ethnic composition, suffer the proximity of the contact area and the consequences of the time-by-time escalations of tension and violence in the region.

The situation in Bosniak Mahala is, for certain extent, different, and you can see what kind of variety is among different quarters in the post-conflict Mitrovica. People are not moving like they used to do, normally, in the past, and they are not easily going from place to place as you can imagine in a quiet situation, because one of the conflict consequences is that freedom of movement, inside and outside Kosovo, is limited. Even in such very difficult situation, Bosniak Mahala continues to be a peculiar environment and a multi-ethnic scenario, where sharings are going on and peace-oriented activities are being held.

The landscape in Northern Kosovo is made even more complicated by the presence of an “official” (from the Kosovo Albanian point of view) government which is the Kosovo Government, issued after the self-proclaimed independence, even if quite not present in the North, and a “parallel” (from the same Kosovo Albanian point of view) government, which is the Serbian Government, the official institutional authority according with the UNSC Resolution 1244 (1999) and for Serbian community, with its offices and functions, in each Northern District (Mitrovica, Zvečan, Leposavić and Zubin Potok).

In Bosniak Mahala, before March 17th, 2004, riots (pogroms), quite 80% of the population were Albanians while nowadays, after the Albanian extremists’ attacks against Serbian communities in Central Kosovo and the widespread climate of violence, anger and suspicion following it, but also for the consequences of the economic crisis, many Albanians just left that quarter and sold their properties, going South.

Bosniak Mahala, from such a point of view, is like a “Little Bosnia”, because you can find a Bosnian community, Serbs speaking Albanian, Albanians speaking Serbian, and, of course, Bosniaks, who are native Slavs, speaking Serbian in Bosnian dialect and believing Islam, and Roma groups. Threats by Albanian extremists continue against the Serbian people and the non-Albanian communities, and they are a major danger.

This is a link-place between the two major communities in Kosovo and an interesting place for inter-ethnic exchanges, that is like a “heritage” from the past, since, up to end 1970s, Mitrovica was one of the most diverse and mixed cities, not only in Kosovo, but in the entire Yugoslavia, with Serbs, Albanians, Turks, Bosniaks and Roma (or, better to say, Roma, Ashkalij and Egyptians, R.A.E.). This social diversity, especially between 1950s and 1970s, was one of the featuring benchmarks of Mitrovica.