In 1870 , Niš was included in the Bulgarian Exarchate. , before the area had been under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć . The city was also stipulated the area to be ceded to Bulgaria according to the Constantinople Conference in 1876 . Niš was finally liberated during the Serbian-Turkish Wars ( 1876-1878 ) . The battle for the liberation of Niš started on 29 December 1877 and the Serbian Army entered in Niš on 11 January 1878 and Niš became a part of the Serbian state . During the Serbian – Ottoman War ( 1876 – 1878 ) the Albanian neighbourhood was burned and some of the Muslim population of Niš fled to the Ottoman vilayet of Kosovo resettling in Pristina where they dominated trade while others went to Skopje . The number of remaining Muslims counted were 1,168 , with many being Muslim Romani , out of the pre-war ca. 8,500 . The demographics of Niš underwent change whereby Serbs who formed half the urban population prior to 1878 became 80 percent in 1884
fled
Expulsion of the Albanians 1877–1878
Niš