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Smajo Bešo OBE Profile picture
Smajo Bešo OBE
@SmajoBeso
Sharing my childhood experience of war. ✍️ Writing my first book 📚 Researcher | Lecturer @uniofnewcastle
Aug 31 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
I started school in Newcastle in Year 5 without knowing a word of English. I was nine years old and had arrived as a refugee from Bosnia just a couple of months earlier. I was one of those strangers our politicians often speak about. Image I missed my grandparents and friends. I was having awful nightmares, and I would wake up screaming every single night. I hated going to school. I would sit in my chair, look out of the window, and spend my day daydreaming about ways to run back to Bosnia. I didn’t want to be here
Aug 30 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
We came to this country as refugees. This photo was taken just months after we arrived at our refugee centre in Gosforth, Newcastle. My brother is on the left; I’m the grumpy one. I was 9, he was 11, & neither of us could speak a word of English. Image We were lucky not to have protesters outside our refugee centre. Instead, we had people welcoming us into their homes, helping us learn English, taking us on trips, & helping us settle. Our school uniforms were donated to us, as was all the furniture you see in the photo.
Jul 5 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Imagine being a child who lived through the siege of Mostar, who hid from shells, starved through months of violence, and buried loved ones, then, 30 years later, turning on the TV and seeing hundreds of thousands cheering for a man who glorifies the very forces that did this. Image Nearly half a million people are expected to attend a concert this evening in Zagreb by Croatian singer Marko Perković “Thompson,” a man widely described as a neo-fascist and Nazi sympathiser. Image
Jul 11, 2024 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
This video captures the horror of the Srebrenica Genocide. It’s difficult to imagine being in such a helpless position but i think everyone needs to watch it if they want to understand what happened in Bosnia.

#Srebrenica

It was filmed in Srebrenica in July 1995, showing Serbian soldiers forcing Ramo Osmanovic to call for his son Nermin. They were both executed.
Nov 20, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I visited Buckingham Palace last week to receive an O.B.E from King Charles III. I was named in the New Year honours list for my work on genocide and Holocaust education. I spent the morning thinking about what 9-year-old Smajo, who started school in year 5 without knowing…. Image
Image …a word of English, would think if he could see me now.  
 
If only all of us could see our future as clearly as we see our past, and then as well as reliving the best moments of our history, we could also pre-live the best moments of our yet-to-come… Image
Image
Oct 27, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Recently, I’ve had several academics, researchers & experts trying to convince me that the war against Bosnia & the situation today is “complicated”.

Bosniak Muslims were hunted & slaughtered like animals.

I’m not sure which bit is complicated?

Serbian soldiers force Ramo Osmanovic to call for his son Nermin. Both were executed. The international community stood by and watched, the UN enabled it.

The international community needs to start listening to Bosnians rather than imposing solutions that cause more suffering.
Oct 24, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
“You are now under the protection of the UN forces”.

French General Philippe Morillon in Srebrenica, 1993.

2 years later - more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslims were slaughtered in just a couple of days.

Europe still hasn’t learned anything from its past.
Oct 24, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Saving lives? I didn’t think anyone really believed this anymore. The UN watched as thousands of Bosniaks were slaughtered, women and girls raped. Watched, discussed, passed resolutions and prevented Bosnia from defending itself but you know that better thank anyone. More about Carl Bildt by @markoah

greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/swe…
Oct 23, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Today marks 27 years since 38 Bosniak (Muslim) civilians, including small children (aged 2, 3 and 9), elderly and disabled people, who were massacred by units of the Croatian Defence Council, the Bosnian Croat wartime force, in October 1993.
balkaninsight.com/2020/10/23/bos… On October 23, 1993, members of Apostoli & Maturice units of the Croatian Defence Council killed 38 people, burning some of them alive, & torched their homes. Among those killed by the Bosnian Croat fighters were children aged two, three & nine, & elderly & disabled people.
Oct 22, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
"Archbishop Serafeim invited the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to visit Athens in 1993. At a mass rally attended by prominent politicians, the indicted war criminal proclaimed: 'We have only God and the Greeks on our side.”

#GoldenDawn
theguardian.com/world/2003/jan… Around 100 soldiers are believed to have joined the Greek Volunteer Guard, formed at Mladic's request. The unit, which fought alongside Russians and Ukrainians, was led by Serb officers and had its own insignia - the double-headed eagle of Byzantium.
Oct 22, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Today marks 28 years since 16 Bosniak (Muslim) men and one woman were seized by paramilitaries from the Bosnian Serb ‘Avengers’ unit and killed at a hotel in Visegrad during the war in 1992.

balkaninsight.com/2020/10/22/bos… The victims were travelling by bus from Sjeverin in Serbia, were abducted & taken to the Vilina Vlas hotel in Visegrad, where they were abused & killed by members of a Bosnian Serb paramilitary unit called the Avengers. Only one victim’s body has been found so far.
May 9, 2020 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Amer Dulic spent 233 days in 4 Bosnian-Croat concentration camps. In 1993, he was only 17 years old when he & his cousins were taken from their homes to Kostana Bolnica (Bone Hospital). They were locked in a small room in the basement with about 20 other kids. They heard screams & crying. It was clear that people were being beaten & tortured. First night there, he was forced to bury 2 cousins. For the first time in his life, he saw beaten and bloodied men, and listened to their final breaths.