Even local services, such as elementary schools, high schools, the university, and the hospitals are provided by a parallel system of local institutions and communes. In postwar Kosova, the Albanians have always been cooperative, with the aim of creating as soon as possible joint organs of local administration. This behavior belies the reality of what is happening to the Serbian population at the local level. Many Serbs are actually ready and willing to cooperate, but they have been prevented from doing so by extremists who have threatened them and their relatives with death. There are not yet even minimal conditions for the security and free movement of the citizens of Mitrovice.
Security is imperiled by organized Serbian bands.
These bands operate with a mandate from the Serbian police, and, in fact, most of their members were at one time either policemen or members of the Serbian secret police. They are well known and are often identified as such by the general population. These individuals threaten the Albanian population in the northern part of Mitrovice in a systematic way in order to breed fear and trigger ethnic cleansing there. Organized crimes against the non-Serbian population are frequent. Thus far, seven Albanians, one Bosnian, and one Turk have been killed.