Nurija Sefić

Nurija Sefić was born in 1956 in Bosanska Krupa. In 1960 his family moved to Sisak, where he still lives to this day. He was an employee of Sisak Steelworks from 1975 to 1995. At the beginning of the war he was in Sisak with his family. According to one of the decrees of the then-President of the Republic of Croatia, from August 1991, all those who were not mobilised had to respect a work obligation and continue coming to their workplace. In accordance with that, Nurija Sefić and his wife, as well as many other people from Sisak, went to work every day despite constant danger. During one shelling, the wife of Nurija Sefić was killed. At the time, she was an employee of the water resources management. She was killed coming back from work. Nurija Sefić was left a widower with two children aged five and eleven. His wife was covered by her firm's insurance policy, but Nurija received no compensation for the loss of her life because the insurance company, according to a clause in the contract, did not pay out damages for exceptional circumstances. For a number of years Nurija personally, and acting through associations, has been arguing for the rights of civilian war victims and the creation of laws which would recognised the suffering of civilian war victims.