Croatia - Migration

As ethnic conflict escalated, by mid-1991 some 160,000 people living in Croatia had fled to other Yugoslav republics, and about 120,000 had fled abroad. Total returns to Croatia as of February 2000 numbered over 112,000, including 36,000 Croatian Serbs who repatriated from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republika Srpska. Also, nearly 74,000 internally displaced people had returned to their homes within Croatia. In February 2000, an estimated 250,000 Croatian Serb refugees were still registered in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and in Bosnia. Of these, more than 25,000 had applied for return under the government's Return Programme. In 2000, the UNHCR was assisting some 47,000 people in Croatia: 13,000 refugees, 30,000 returnees, and 4,000 internally displaced people. UNHCR expected this figure to decrease to some 43,000 people by the end of 2000. Almost all of the refugees were from Republika Srpska (the Bosnian-Serb entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina). The net migration rate in 1999 was 1.81 migrants per 1,000 population. The total number of migrants living in Croatia in 2000 was 425,000. The government views the emigration level as too high.