“Adults never learn” — football star’s anti-genocide letter to kids

Bosnians know about suffering genocide. It’s why they stood with the Palestinians against Israel before Bosnia’s first World Cup 2026 match. And, also ahead of Bosnia’s opening game against Canada, Bosnian football legend Edin Džeko wrote a letter to Bosnian children about it.

Džeko wanted to talk to them about what it was like to survive genocide — and how its terrors are still seen now. He wrote:

In the end, we survived. Looking back, I’m amazed at how strong we were. We were just little kids. But there was no point to the war. All those innocent people killed, and for what? For money. Power. Ego.  For nothing.  When there is war on the news today, I feel sick. I don’t want to see it anywhere. For some reason, adults never learn.

Džeko also remembered how the horrors had robbed him even of being able to imagine ever becoming a footballer. He said it “seemed so impossible that I did not even dream about it”. Israel has robbed almost a million Palestinian children in Gaza of any dream beyond the hope of surviving another hour or finding a morsel of food to eat.

Bosnia and Palestine — Hope torn away

Tens of thousands have no hope of ever becoming a sports professional like Džeko, because their eyes or limbs have been torn away from them by Israel’s bombs and bullets. Even more have had their health ruined by starvation and disease inflicted by the occupier. Israel has robbed all those who survive of their childhood, their education and their innocence.

The genocide in Bosnia was a horror. But it is towered over by the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the crimes of the occupation. Read Džeko’s full letter here.

Featured image via Filip Filipovic/Getty Images