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The Croatian Sabic family were literally torn apart when civil war broke out in Bosnia in 1992. Seven years ago they settled in Britain, but the horror of war was not over ...

Palvala and Nevenka Sabic, and their two daughters, Maya and Irena talk to Felicity Finch about their lives in Britain.

Irena begins, "When we came over here, we thought everything was going to be fine now, because our parents who were our guardian angels who were our bright shining star throughout Belgrade, were here again, and we could just hide under their wings and everything would be perfect again. It felt like a complete mixture of a dream and a holiday." The holiday feeling soon wore off. The family had been through a traumatic time, and the war was still continuing in Bosnia. Their inability to speak English increased their feelings of frustration, and helplessness.

Palvala expresses the desperation they felt, "You don't see your future, you don't see anything" and how anxious he and his wife were about their daughters, "We could see they were not happy. They would withdraw into their rooms and they would be sad and sometimes crying. Unfortunately, I don't think we could have done more than we did. They knew that we were not able to solve their problems, to help them, and that's why they wouldn't talk much about it. Irena remembers, "Everybody tried to be strong for everyone else and we didn't want to create dramatic scenes. When my mum described the hospital in Sarajevo, full of people with limbs missing and blood everywhere -it becomes irrelevant that someone is picking on you at school ..."

Whilst the family tried to deal with their individual and collective emotional reactions to the war, Palvala was struggling with unemployment. Even as highly qualified and experienced engineer, he was unable to find work, "All the time I felt guilty, not a decent man able to provide for my children and really I didn't value myself ..." His daughters found this a painful time too. Irena, "To me he was still my Dad and I didn't care what he was doing. But he didn't talk to us anymore. And if he didn't have a job to go to he thought he should study and get educated, so he studied every single day. He worked so hard, without communicating to us which was difficult because we knew what was going on, yet how can you say to your dad "talk to me…" but without a job there is nothing we can say, nothing we can solve."

But the Sabich family have persevered. With enormous effort, they have made a success of their life here. Palvala has re-trained as an accountant and found work. Nevenka teaches English as a foreign language. Maya and Irena have won places at Oxford and Cambridge respectively. Happiness, though, is a word Nevenka doesn't find easy to use about her life now, "happiness - that word doesn't really exist for me any more." The family know they bear scars, but Irena sums up how they deal with life now, "We just appreciate the little things, that make us feel that we're all there for each other.. and we love each other, and we're all still here, living and enjoying life…"

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