Bosnian Census Show Big Population Drop

A woman answers questions while filling in the questionnaire for the latest Bosnian census in October.

SARAJEVO -- Bosnia's population has dropped by 13 percent in two decades, according to preliminary results from the country's first census since the 1992-95 war.

The head of the statistics agency, Zdenko Milinovic, said authorities registered 3.79 million people during the October 1-15 census. In the last census, held in 1991, Bosnia had a population of 4.37 million residents. Results of the country's ethnic divisions will not be released before July next year.

The question of ethnicity is highly sensitive in Bosnia, which two decades after the war remains divided into two highly autonomous entities: the Serbs' Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation.

According to the 1991 census, Bosnia's population included 43.5 percent Muslims, 31.2 percent Serbs, and 17.4 percent Croats.

With reporting by AFP and AP