Last year, 63,611 people died in Croatia, which is 10,866 or 20.6% more than the average number of deaths in the 2015-2019 period, the state statistics bureau (DZS) said on Friday.

During the time of the COVID-19 pandemic in Croatia, from March 2020 to December 2021, the death rate increased by 16.9% compared with the 2015-2019 average.

According to provisional data, 7,313 peopled died in Croatia in December 2021, which is an increase of 57.6% on the five-year average for the same month. The largest number of deaths in a single month (7,608) was recorded in December 2020, up by 63.9% compared with the five-year average for the same month.

A DZS chart showed that the number of deaths in several months of 2020 and 2021 was above the average for the 2015-2019 period.

During the five-year period, people mostly died in January (5,485 on average), March (4,797), December (4,641) and February (4,615). On the other hand, during the two pandemic years, the number of deaths started to rise considerably in October (4,826 in 2020 and 4,764 in 2021), culminated in December and then started to decline in February.

The DZS also released provisional data on marriages, showing that there were 19,946 marriages in 2021, down by 0.6% from the average for the 2015-2019 period.

During the pandemic, the number of marriages between March 2020 and December 2021 fell by 12.9% compared with the five-year average for the same period.

The sharpest deviation from the average was recorded during the first lockdown in spring 2020, when wedding parties were subject to strict epidemiological restrictions. The five-year average for April was 1,695 marriages, compared to a mere 288 in April 2020.