[2] As a Serb-inhabited enclave in a heavily Albanian-inhabited region of western Kosovo, Goraždevac has been the scene of ethnic tensions between the two communities.

It was the scene of attacks by the guerilla group, the Kosovo Liberation Army, in the late 1990s as they fought the Serb military forces, accused of committing atrocities against the Albanian population.

After the end of the Kosovo War in June 1999, many of its population of around 2,000 Serbs fled attacks by Albanian militants, though some later returned.

[citation needed] In June 2003, Veselin Besović from Goraždevac was sentenced by an international court in Peja to serve seven years in prison for crimes allegedly committed in the villages of Čuska and Zahać.

In August 2003, a 19-year-old Serbian teenager and a 12-year-old boy were killed, with four more children wounded, with fire from automatic rifles, while swimming in the Bistrica near Goraždevac.