The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which began shortly after the breakup of Yugoslavia, influenced the intergroup relations of the former republics and led to the formation of several different (and difficult) collective memories of past conflicts (and the time before the conflict). Although the war ended more than 25 years ago, it has had unprecedented consequences for the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and has led to a change in population structure and relationships among people within the country. Currently divided into two entities and one district, and burdened by a heavy bureaucratic apparatus and debt, Bosnia and Herzegovina is struggling with the accelerating “brain drain” of its young citizens to EU countries and the influx of refugees and migrants from the Middle East who, unable to cross the border to Croatia, remain “detained” within Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this chapter I will try to briefly present the major problems that Bosnia and Herzegovina has been going through since the end of the 1992–5 war while focusing mostly on intergroup relations, unhealed trauma, and how these interact with high brain drain, corruption, EU accession, and current migrant crisis.

Movements

There are different reasons why people leave the country, but unemployment, low salaries, threatening political rhetoric, high levels of corruption, poor forecasts for the future, and accession to the EU could be considered the most common. As Samir Huseinović (2019) reported, an estimated 30,000 citizens have left Bosnia and Herzegovina since the beginning of 2019, and a further 178,000 citizens have left the country in the last five years. Those who leave are working-age people who want to provide a better life for their families, away from the divisions and still-present nationalism.

While the youth of Bosnia and Herzegovina is leaving the country, there has been an influx of refugees and migrants from the Middle East – particularly in the last two years. Those immigrants do not intend to stay in Bosnia, but they are unable to cross the border with Croatia and continue their journey. Therefore, they are doomed to spend time moving between Bosnia and Serbia, often illegally, in a vain attempt to gain access to one of the countries of the EU.