Bosnia and Herzegovina is threatened with a demographic disaster if the current trends and rapid ageing of the population continue, with realistic estimates indicating that by 2070 its population could shrink to only 1.5 million, the UN Population Fund said in an analysis it published on Tuesday.

The document, Population Situation Analysis in Bosnia and Herzegovina, includes different projections by an expert team from Charles University in Prague of what could occur in that country in the next fifty years if it does not urgently change its population and development policy.

In the past two and a half decades, BiH has experienced a significant decline in population due to the war but also migration. The 1991 census showed the country had a population of almost 4.2 million while the 2013 census showed a population of only 3.5 million. However, it is assumed that even that number is inflated and that the actual size of the population in 2013 was closer to 3 million because the census recorded a large number of people who only own property in the country and actually live elsewhere.

Now, based on the most optimistic scenario, by 2070 BiH could have 2.5 million people at the most, and the scenario that demographers consider the most realistic is one of a demographic collapse and a population of only 1.5 million.

The UN Resident Coordinator in BiH, Ingrid Macdonald, said that it was obvious that human resources in BiH are depleting, which means that the country will probably not be able to recover from the consequences of the current pandemic and that it lacks any long-term development prospects.

Fewer children are being born and more and more people are emigrating. That is a disturbing trend and concrete steps to stop it are needed immediately, said Macdonald.

The UN analysis shows that the average birth rate has decreased steadily, standing at 1% between 1981 and 1991 while now it stands at -0.14% with the fertility rate of 1.28, according to the 2013 census. This means that the basic reproduction of the population is not occurring and BiH is at the bottom of the scale in the region.

It is estimated that at least 23,000 people will have emigrated from the country by the end of 2020, and they will continue to emigrate by the thousands in the years to come.

If the current trend continues, by 2070 more than half the country's population will be older than 65.