By Selma Seferovic
I come from Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina. A year into the devastating war in my country, my mother brought my brother and I to the U.K. The ‘mothers and children only’ convoy separated my family. I was about to turn eight, a birthday I would celebrate in an alien place, but luckily we managed to escape unharmed, unlike the many others.
I thought I would go back to my friends and family in Sarajevo. The war raged for 3 more years, and the prospect of returning shrunk with the years. I remember my mother desperately trying to get news form her parents and my father from a besieged city that was routinely cut off from any form of communication.
Sarajevo
I never realized how the war had affected me as a child, the fear of the constant bombing and snipers, the countless days spent in the basement. I constantly wondered when this would all be over and I could finally play in the courtyard with my friends again.
“The convoy was cancelled, it’s too dangerous” was a response I heard more than five times when I asked why we weren’t leaving this time. Eventually we left Sarajevo with one suitcase. Questions and doubts swirled in my mind. Where was this strange place I was leaving my country and family for?
I could not speak English and the word ‘the’ annoyed and boggled me every time I looked at the pictures in my ‘Let’s Learn English’ book with the teddy on the front. We didn’t have this word, as we didn’t have many things that would soon enter my world. ‘Thank you’ and ‘please’ were the most important words to remember for a little girl, I was told.
Staring through the back window of the bus I was left with the image of my father, waving at us, with tears in his eyes. I had never seen him cry. I did not see him again for another seven years.
The bus I was leaving on was shot at. Why is this happening? We crossed the Croatian border on Christmas Eve. People were celebrating, there were bright lights fireworks. I felt invisible, as if we had crawled out of another time and different world. I squeezed my mother’s hand. We stepped onto the plane for London on New Years day. The childish excitement that usually stirred in my tummy at this time of year was not there though. I wanted to go home.
Posted by Chiara Gnoli
Thank you for sharing your story. It was moving to hear it from a child’s point of view.