We could hear gunshots. If I had ignored my mum, I’d be dead

AT a young age, Safet Vukalic experienced pure hatred at its most terrifying.

He was just 16 in 1992 when conflict erupted between Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims following the collapse of Yugoslavia.

As members of the minority Muslims in Prijedor, his family was targeted by the majority Serbs.

His dad and brother were imprisoned in concentration camps. Safet only escaped because his mother pleaded with him to remain indoors.

So many perished but his family survived and fled to the UK.

As an adult, Safet, right, has never forgotten what they endured, and has dedicated his life to educating society on ethnic cleansing to stop it happening again. His work in schools, communities and with the police has seen him shortlisted for Community Volunteer Upstander at the No2H8 Crime Awards. He recalls how his family and others had to wear white armbands and fly white sheets from their house to be identified as Muslims. Safet, 42, describes how in May 1992 soldiers ordered the men out of their homes, saying: ‘You’ll be questioned’. “My dad and my brother went. I was going to go out as well because I was 16, and my mum said, ‘No, stay home.’ “We could hear gunshots. I know now that if I had gone and hadn’t listened to my mother, I wouldn’t be here today.” Safet’s family learned that his father had been taken to Omarska in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“I cried and cried. We heard of all the killings that went on in that camp. I thought to myself that I wasn’t going to have my dad,” he says.

But Safet’s father was taken to another camp, Manjaca, where he was eventually allowed to leave and, aided by the Red Cross, able to flee to a new life in the UK, where his family followed.

Now Safet lives in Sutton, Surrey, with his wife and two children.

Referring to the hate crimes that still devastate communities today, Safet says: “Hate is like a virus: if you don’t treat it, it will just spread. If you don’t deal with it, it will spread and get worse. Then it gets really hard to fight it.

“We cannot stand by and wait for things to improve by themselves. We have to act quickly.”