Liverpool's Dejan Lovren to reveal life as refugee in new documentary
The defender was forced to flee his home in Bosnia as civil war broke out in the early 1990s
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Your support makes all the difference.Dejan Lovren will open up about his early life as a refugee in a new documentary for Liverpool's club television channel LFCTV.
The defender was just two when war broke out in 1992 following the break-up of Yugoslavia and he was forced to flee his home village in the newly-formed Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"I wish I could explain everything what happened," Lovren, now 27, will explain.
"You hear so many stories, but nobody knows the real truth. It just happened. It just changed everything through the night - war between everyone, between three different cultures. People just changed - we heard so many stories on the radio and the television.”
The Lovren family then drove over 500 miles to Munich and settled in Germany before being forced to move again seven years later.
“I just remember when the sirens went on," Lovren added. "I was so scared because I was thinking ‘bombs’ or that something will happen now. 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."
Lovren later found a home in Croatia - who he now represents at international level - but those brutal formative years will never leave his memory.
"When I see what's happening today, I just remember my thing," Lovren said in reference to the refugee crisis currently sweeping Europe and the Middle East.
"I grew up in a town called Kraljeva Sutjeska. It was a real family town. We had everything, to be honest. Everything.
"And then... it happened. In these small villages that was the most horrific thing that happened. People just being brutally killed."
Lovren will share his story despite warnings from his mother to keep his past private.
"People still avoid talking about that," he adds. "My mum said: 'Don't tell them...' But I said: 'I will tell them.'"
"Lovren: My Life as a Refugee" will air on LFCTV at 10pm on Wednesday night and is free to air on LFCTV GO at the same time.
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