Partisans. Zenica managed to escape major physical damage or large-scale reprisals and human casualties.
Following the liberation of Zenica by the Partisans in 1945, the town began to grow rapidly as the steel industry developed further. The town spread to encompass the former villages of Bilino Polje, Klopce and Radakovo, and new apartment blocks were built to house the new miners and steelworkers. In 1948 the population was only 12,000 people, but by 1961 it had grown to over 30,000. In 1981 the town had over 63,000 people, and in the last census taken 1991 Zenica was a city of some 96,027 people. Zenica had seen a sixfold increase in its population over 50 years.
The Bosnian War and Independence
In 1991, just one year before the Bosnian War began, Zenica became the headquarters of one of the first private and independent radio stations in Eastern Europe, Radio CD-CEMP. In the spring of 1993, Zoran Misetic, a journalist and the owner of Radio CD-CEMP, was awarded with the Belgian Award for Independent Journalism; the "Pen Of Peace".
During the Bosnian War, the demographics of the city were altered to a certain extent, whereby the city received a large number of ethnic Bosniaks from other parts of Bosnia, while the Serb population left Zenica to parts of Serb-controlled Bosnia. Today, Zenica is trying to regain the economic influence it used to have before the war. One of the biggest steel mills in South Central Europe has been privatized and now bears the name of the Mittal Steel Corp
