Census Results Highlight Impact of Bosnian War

The Bosnia capital Sarajevo. Photo: Michał Huniewicz / Wikicommons.

The final results of the 2013 Bosnian census, the first headcount conducted since the 1992-5 war, highlight a sharp fall in the number of residents in the country, as well as drastic changes in the ethnic composition of the major Bosnian cities.

Data published on Thursday revealed that Bosnia’s overall population fell by 845,874 compared to 1991, when the previous census was conducted, one year before the war started.

Bosnia in the past two decades has thus lost around 19.32 per cent of its population since 1991, both as an effect of the war and of massive emigration which has drained the country.

The trend is common to all major cities: the population of the capital, Sarajevo, which is today set at 275,524 persons, has almost halved compared to 1991, although this is mainly due to the administrative reform of the old territory of the city, which is today divided into a larger number of municipalities.

Banja Luka, the administrative centre of Bosnia’s mainly Serbian entity, Republika Srpska, RS, today has a population of 185,042, 5.4 per cent less than in 1991.

The exodus of residents has been more drastic in the southern city of Mostar, which today has 105,797 residents, 16.45 per cent less than in 1991.

In the central Bosnian town of Tuzla the fall is similar, of 15.6 per cent. Zenica lost 23.9 percent of its population and currently has 110,663 residents.

Media also dedicated detailed analysis to the ethnic composition of the population in Bosnia’s bigger cities, which has markedly changed since 1991.

In the four municipalities which now make up Sarajevo, the number of Serbian and Croatian residents has fallen by 57,075 and 10,637 respectively, while Bosniak residents have risen by 39,954 and today make up the majority of the population of the city – 80.74 per cent – regional TV N1 reported.

On the other hand, the number of Croat and Bosniak residents in Banja Luka has dropped and Serbs today make up 89.57 per cent of the population.

In the southern city of Mostar, both the number of Croat and Bosniak residents has risen compared to 1991, but the size of the Serbian community dropped from 23,846 to 4,421 today.

The census also confirmed the drop in the number of non-Serb residents, especially Bosniaks, in the Drina river valley region.

In the eastern town of Visegrad, the number of Bosniaks dropped from 13,471 to 1,043 and in nearby Zvornik from 48,102 to 19,855. In Srebrenica, the number of Bosniak residents fell from 27,572 to 7,248.

Ivana Maric, a political analyst based in Sarajevo, said these results were to be expected.

“The results of the census were not a surprise … we already know what the situation is and the fact that Bosnia is divided by ethnic criteria,” Maric told BIRN.

She also added that the results are not problematic for the country, but the way they were obtained and published was worrying, as it has created further conflict between representatives of the RS and the central government.

She was referring to the fact that Bosnian Serb politicians have condemned the decision of the State Statistical Agency to unilaterally publish the results of the census.

“Now we have published the results of the census but won’t be able to proceed on other important issues, like the update of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement [one of the conditions imposed by the EU in order to grant Bosnia candidate status] at least until after the local elections in October,” Maric concluded.