More than 50,000 people have left Bosnia for Germany only over the past two years, according to data by Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees.

The data says that 24,010 people have left for Germany in 2016, and another 26,112 in 2017.T

he Office also said that 16,335 Bosnian-born people have left Germany in 2016, while 12,088 did so the following year.

Germany registered a decrease in positive migration in 2017 compared to the year before, but immigration nevertheless increased from Western Balkan countries, specifically from Bosnia and Herzegovina (+14,024), Serbia (+6973) and Kosovo (+6611). An increase in immigrants from Balkan EU countries such as Romania, Poland, Croatia and Bulgaria was also registered.

Two per cent of Bosnians in Germany have in 2016 brought their families to the country, while in 2017 some 3.1 per cent did so.

Immigration from the Western Balkans has been increasing since October 2015, when Germany adopted new regulations permitting those from Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia to acquire working permits under certain conditions.

Nearly 3,5 million people immigrated to Germany in 2016 and 2017, mostly Poles and Romanians.

The Union for Sustainable Return and Integration, a Bosnian NGO, has recently stated that more than 150,000 people have left Bosnia since 2013.

Little more than 3,5 million people are living in Bosnia and Herzegovina according to the country’s Statistics Agency.