LIVERPOOL DEFENDER DEJAN LOVREN has delved into his harrowing past for a new documentary.
Lovren: My Life As A Refugee is available via the club’s in-house TV channel and features the centre-back opening up in an emotional and in-depth interview.
Born just outside Zenica in the former Yugoslavia, Lovren and his family were forced to flee once the Bosnian War began in the mid-1990s. Lovren was just three when he became a refugee.
“I wish I could explain everything but nobody knows the real truth”, he says,
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“It just happened. It just changed through the night – war between everyone, three different cultures. People just changed. I just remember the sirens went on. I was so scared because I was thinking “bombs”. I remember my mum took me and we went to the basement, I don’t know how long we’d been sitting there, I think it was until the sirens went off. Afterwards, I remember mum, my uncle, my uncle’s wife, we took the car and then we were driving to Germany. We left everything – the house, the little shop with the food they had, they left it. They took one bag and ‘let’s go to Germany’.”
After a 17-hour, 500-mile trip, there was peace from the bombings and the murders.
Lovren acclimatised but, even in their new home, there was always concern that it was only temporary. Every year, Lovren’s parents had to go through the work permit process with the fear that one day, they’d be forced to return home.
That day came seven years later and Lovren’s family were uprooted again. They relocated to Croatia where Lovren was bullied and his Mum and Dad struggled to earn money.
“For a week we didn’t have money”, he says,
“I remember my dad took my ice skates. One day I asked my mum: ‘Where are my ice skates?’ because I loved to skate in the winter. And she said through tears: ‘Dad is selling them now … we don’t have money for this week.’ I swear this is the point in my life that I said: ‘I don’t want to hear this any more.’ He sold them for 350 Kuna, it’s about £40. My ice-skates: sold. It was a tough time for my parents.”
Lovren wanted to discuss his past in an effort to shed some light on what it’s like for migrants to fear for their lives, flee a country and try and assimilate in a new place, learn a new language and desperately attempt to be accepted.
“When I see what’s happening today [with refugees] I just remember my thing, my family and how people don’t want you in their country. I understand people want to protect themselves, but people don’t have homes. It’s not their fault; they’re fighting for their lives just to save their kids. They want a secure place for their kids and their futures. I went through all this and I know what some families are going through. Give them a chance, give them a chance. You can see who the good people are and who are not.”
'For a week we didn't have money': Liverpool's Lovren on his harrowing past as a child refugee
LIVERPOOL DEFENDER DEJAN LOVREN has delved into his harrowing past for a new documentary.
Lovren: My Life As A Refugee is available via the club’s in-house TV channel and features the centre-back opening up in an emotional and in-depth interview.
Born just outside Zenica in the former Yugoslavia, Lovren and his family were forced to flee once the Bosnian War began in the mid-1990s. Lovren was just three when he became a refugee.
“I wish I could explain everything but nobody knows the real truth”, he says,
“It just happened. It just changed through the night – war between everyone, three different cultures. People just changed. I just remember the sirens went on. I was so scared because I was thinking “bombs”. I remember my mum took me and we went to the basement, I don’t know how long we’d been sitting there, I think it was until the sirens went off. Afterwards, I remember mum, my uncle, my uncle’s wife, we took the car and then we were driving to Germany. We left everything – the house, the little shop with the food they had, they left it. They took one bag and ‘let’s go to Germany’.”
After a 17-hour, 500-mile trip, there was peace from the bombings and the murders.
Lovren acclimatised but, even in their new home, there was always concern that it was only temporary. Every year, Lovren’s parents had to go through the work permit process with the fear that one day, they’d be forced to return home.
That day came seven years later and Lovren’s family were uprooted again. They relocated to Croatia where Lovren was bullied and his Mum and Dad struggled to earn money.
“For a week we didn’t have money”, he says,
Lovren wanted to discuss his past in an effort to shed some light on what it’s like for migrants to fear for their lives, flee a country and try and assimilate in a new place, learn a new language and desperately attempt to be accepted.
“When I see what’s happening today [with refugees] I just remember my thing, my family and how people don’t want you in their country. I understand people want to protect themselves, but people don’t have homes. It’s not their fault; they’re fighting for their lives just to save their kids. They want a secure place for their kids and their futures. I went through all this and I know what some families are going through. Give them a chance, give them a chance. You can see who the good people are and who are not.”
You can check out the full documentary right here
– Article first published 00.31, 9 February
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balkan conflict Bosnian War brave Dejan Lovren Liverpool