To Stay or to Go? – the Personal Dilemma Haunting Young Bosnians

Bosnia's overall population has shrunk significantly in the last 20 years, from 4.3 million in the last pre-war census in 1991 to 3.5 million today. Many of the leavers have been young.

"According to unofficial information, from 1996 to the present, Bosnia has lost more than 150,000 young people," explains Adnan Husic, Assistant Minister of Education at the Ministry of Civil Affairs. "In 2018, 4,474 persons renounced Bosnian nationality, 1,385 of whom were between 18 and 25," he adds.

In 2016, the European Union's Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency reported an unemployment rate of 48.5 per cent among Bosnians aged 20 to 34 with a post-secondary education who had graduated within the past three years.

By contrast, the EU statistics office, Eurostat, said the 2017 rate of employment rate among 20 to 34-year-olds in the EU who graduated with the same credentials was 82.8 per cent. Bosnia's youth unemployment rate is among the highest in the world.

Youth feel stuck on a 'CD loop':

Selma Buljko. Photo: BIRN/Kinsley Cuen

Buljko, a 22-year-old from the southern city of Mostar, describes her frustrations, growing up in a deeply divided country and city. "I feel like I'm listening to a CD stuck on loop here. It's all nationalism and ethnic hatred, and will there be another war. It's outdated and we're fed up. I want to make a change, but I know I can't influence anything until I am someone," she says.

Buljko, Kurtovic, and Pasic have deep ties to Bosnia; all of their parents survived the wars of the 1990s. But despite their families' experiences, they do not feel morally obliged to stay, and cite them as being supportive of any future they choose.

Kurtovic, a US and Bosnian citizen,...