In an interview with the Dutch media, the former football player of the Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) national football team, Haris Medunjanin, spoke about the current situation in Israel and Palestine, but also about how he escaped from Sarajevo during the war in BiH.
At the beginning of the interview, Medunjanin recalled events from his childhood when he ran away from Sarajevo as a seven-year-old and came to the Netherlands, where his life’s journey began.
Moreover, he told his shocking story, and the conflict in Israel and Palestine affects him a lot because his son Benjamin lives in Tel Aviv together with his ex-wife.
“You never know what would have happened if we hadn’t gotten on that bus. I would surely be dead now, just like my childhood friend who stayed in Sarajevo, who was killed when a grenade fell on the playground where he was playing with the other kids. That could have happened to me, that’s war. Take for example my neighbor, a friend of my parents with whom we grew up and with whom we had no problems, but after the war started he suddenly considered us strangers and wanted to kill us because he was on the other side. It’s scary,” Medunjanin said at the beginning and touched on the terrible and horrible scene from Montenegro.
“We came to Montenegro by bus, after which a Serbian soldier entered the bus and said that he would kill us all. Everyone screamed and cried, especially when one of them took me in his arms and wanted to take me away from my mother who was crying. Fortunately, everything was good in the end, they changed their minds when they saw many children on the bus. We were very lucky, I think. One of them showed me a gun and told me “to never use it and not to do anything stupid and to do positive things like sports”. To everyone’s relief, we were allowed to move on and look for a way to a better life,” he added.
He fears for the life of his three-year-old son
The Israelis have been at war with the Palestinians for a long time, and Medunjanin pointed out that he is afraid that something will happen to his son. Namely, his son, three-year-old Benjamin, lives in Israel with his ex-wife.
“I already told them to come to Spain earlier, but she didn’t want to, she wanted to stay in Israel. She is Jewish and feels safe in Israel. Fortunately, I have a good relationship with her, we are in constant contact through Facetime and that is nice. Every day I can see Benjamin in this way and ask what he’s doing. The advantage is that he’s very young and doesn’t know what’s going on, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s very difficult,” said Haris, who pointed out that he hopes that he will soon be able to hold Benjamin in his hands.
“And that depends on when we can fly to Israel again. I want to be with my son, especially in this situation, but the most important thing is that the two of them are safe. They are in Tel Aviv and I hope they will be fine,” Medjunanin added, N1 reports.
E.DZ.
