Smajo Bešo

The Bosnian War took everything from me – my home, my dad, uncles, and friends. Everything I once knew.

Before the war, my childhood in my hometown village of Barane (in the south of modern day Bosnia and Herzegovina) was amazing. My family was Muslim – made up of my dad, mam, older brother, and older sister. The only things that mattered to me were which cartoons we watched, which books we liked, and – most importantly – which football clubs we supported. But slowly, our childhood games changed. We stopped playing hide and seek, and started playing soldiers, tanks, and camps.

When I was seven years old, the siege of Sarajevo by Serb forces began and Bosnia became the setting of Europe’s only genocide since the Holocaust. In spring 1992, war came to our village. At first, it felt surreal. After about two months, my parents made a decision that we had to flee our home for our own safety. In the first nine months of war, we moved 14 times before we eventually settled with one of my uncles in a nearby village.

Things got much worse in the summer of 1993 when Croatian forces began rounding up Muslim men into concentration camps, including my dad and most of my male relatives. Some of my cousins were just 16 years old. I cried myself to sleep that night. In the aftermath, I wouldn’t leave my mam’s side. There were also camps for women and children and on August 4, we were rounded up in a ‘collection centre’.

We were then loaded onto cattle trucks along with other families and driven a couple of hours towards Bosnian government territory, south of Mostar. We eventually made our way to my aunt Emina’s house, my mam’s older sister, where we were allowed to stay. We were exhausted, frightened, and starving. Life was really difficult at Emina’s house because thousands of shells rained on the city daily. We fell asleep hungry every night, but my mam and aunt were so resourceful. They used chicken feed to make bread and grass to make pies.

We started school as an act of defiance, but it was safest to go at night. I was desperate to learn to read and write because we started receiving letters from my dad through the International Red Cross. This is when we learnt what had happened to him. He ended up in Dretelj, a former military complex, and kept in one of the tunnels that went deep into the mountain. Within weeks of arriving in the concentration camp, he lost four stone (25kg) after being treated very badly. He still can’t talk about the full details.

He was there for a few months before the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) helped secure the release of around 500 prisoners. The UK was one of several countries to take in refugees. My dad was brought to Newcastle. We were so relieved that he was safe and we desperately wanted to be reunited with him. Unfortunately, it would be six full months until that was possible.

On June 19, 1994, the Red Cross came to find us in Mostar and gave us two hours to decide whether we would leave Bosnia. It was a difficult decision to leave my grandparents and cousins, but I was excited to see my dad again. We were then taken to a refugee camp in Croatia, where we spent exactly a month. We arrived in London on July 19 and flew to Newcastle later that day. We were reunited with my dad at the airport that same day. My sister spotted him in the crowd first and ran to him, then my brother followed quickly after her.

Our plan was always to stay in the UK temporarily, but we learnt in the years since that our house had been torched. We still have the key to the home though because a part of us believes we’ll go back one day.

In 2020, I established the Bosnian Genocide Educational Trust. Then in 2023, I was awarded an OBE by King Charles for my work in genocide and Holocaust education. I attended Buckingham Palace with my wife, Allija, and mam. It was an emotional day for all of us.

Despite everything my parents experienced in Bosnia, they remain beacons of strength, hope, and inspiration. We just celebrated my dad’s 73rd birthday and my mam’s 65th. They were surrounded by all their children and grandchildren, it was a beautiful day.