Skenderaj or Srbica is a town and municipality located in the Mitrovica District of Kosovo. According to the 2011 census, the town of Skënderaj has 9,372 inhabitants, while the municipality has 50,858 inhabitants. It is the largest city in the Drenica geographical region of Kosovo. It is mainly populated by ethnic Albanians. It is claimed to be the poorest city in Kosovo. It is the place where the Kosovo War began in 1998, and to which the most damage was done.
Geography
The settlement is by the Klina river, in the Klina field. It is the main settlement of the Drenica region. The Klina river belongs to the Metohija region, while the settlement morphologically and hydrologically gravitates towards the Kosovo region. The municipality covers an area of 378 km2, including the town of Srbica and 51 villages.
History
Archaeological findings in the municipality area include a Neolithic site in Rudnik, and remains of a Roman necropolis in Gornji Obilić. The municipality cadastral area includes several settlements that existed during the Middle Ages, among which some exist still today, such as Leočina, Poljance, Banja, and others. There are ruins of a church dating to the 14th century in southern Leočina. The Church of St. Nicholas was built in 1436, in Banja, as the endowment of Serbian magnate Rodop. The Devič monastery was built in Lauša near Srbica in the 15th century, dedicated to the local monk, St. Joanikije. The Church of St. John was built in the 16th century on the ruins of a 14th-century church, in Leočina; the church is surrounded by an old and large Serbian graveyard with tombs dating to the 17th–19th centuries. A 16th-century church and cemetery is located in Rudnik. In the early 20th century Albanian resistance began with the Kachak movement led by Azem Bejta and his wife Shote Galica, who fought against Bulgarian, Austro-Hungarian and Yugoslav forces. At the end of World War II in 1944, the leader of the Drenica Brigade Shaban Polluzha refused to lead his 12,000 men north and join the Partisans in order to pursue the retreating Germans, because Serbian Chetnik groups were attacking the Albanian population in Kosovo.
Economy
Skënderaj has historically been the poorest municipality in Kosovo, with little investment having been made since the time of the former Yugoslavia. It suffers from low economic activity and continuous high unemployment. Agriculture is the major local industry but the municipality has not fully developed existing arable land. Today, the local economy consists of small enterprises such as family-run shops and restaurants while two privatized factories, a brick and a flour mill, employ a few hundred people. The other major sector of employment is the municipality's civil service.
