Zvornik: Encyclopedia II - Zvornik - Demographics

Zvornik - Demographics

The city's demographic situation has changed drastically in the last 15 years. Up until 1992, the municipality had a population of 81,111 residents with a Bosniak majority and a large Serb minority. There were 48,205 Bosniaks (59.43%), 30,838 Serbs (38.02%), 1224 Yugoslavs (1.51%), 122 Croats (0.15%), and 722 others (0.89%).

However, through ethnic cleansing practiced widely in the Bosnian war, Zvornik's Bosniak population were forced to flee, while Serbs who were expelled from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina settled in the town. In addition, there were numerous instances of mass killings in Zvornik and the surrounding villages. It is known that the suburb of Karakaj was the place of concentration camps where hundreds of Bosniaks were brutally murdered.

After the war, the town's population consisted of only Serbs with no trace of the long Bosniak tradition, such as mosques. With the help of the international community, there has been an effort to return refugees back to the municipality, but the process has been slow and will take many years to complete.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Demographics", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki