The mass exodus from the Balkans

topic:	Migration
located:	Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia
editor:	Katarina Panić

Many ordinary people in Bosnia and Herzegovina - and the rest of the Balkans - think the region’s main issue is the mass migration of their citizens. On the other hand, politicians are aware of the situation, but they avoid prioritising it, acting instead like the problem will vanish if they do not address it. As a result, no public institution has precise data on how many people have left the region. Instead, non-governmental organisations try to collect and deal with the data to show how serious the problem is and attract the attention of decision makers accordingly.

The media often reports on massive migration and warns authorities about the ongoing mass depopulation. Yet, one could hardly say the demographic measures have led to desirable results. On the contrary, it seems things have gotten even worse.

The most recent census was conducted in 2013, and it took three years for the results to be published due to a dispute between the state’s administrative units. Out of 3.5 million people, half a million Bosnians have left the country over the last decade and some 170,000 only the previous year, according to the Sarajevo-based NGO Union for Sustainable Return and Integration. Catastrophic data are visible on the microlevel, too. For instance, the town Prijedor had some 90,000 people in 2013. Last year, there were only 699 newborns compared to 1,630 deaths. This ratio was not an exception, but a continual trend. It is easy to count more than 900 people missing per year. On the state level, the number of deaths is twice as high as the number of newborns. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that less than 1.6 million people will be in Bosnia in 2070 if current trends continue.

And trends nowadays are terrifying compared to those back in 2011, when the visa-free regime with the EU began and when unemployed people started to leave the region. Today, entire families go, even highly educated couples employed in the public sector, which is considered the most preferred position. Only a few years ago, this was unimaginable. The surveys show that people are leaving to find quality education and health systems. They strive for better rule of law, increased security and more prospects.

Among standard measures that governments usually apply to prevent demographic decline, which are most often focused on pro-natal policies, neighbouring Croatia introduced a new scheme at the end of the last year, sparking a controversial public debate. The state decided to offer a payment of about €25,000 to Croats who returned from abroad or to locals who left the cities to live in rarely inhabited villages.

Photo by Imre Tömösvári

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