My home was destroyed, there was nothing left

- asylum seeker Luljeta Nuzi LULJETA Nuzi watched her house burn and realised she had to leave her homeland. Heavily pregnant and accompanied by her three-year-old daughter Denada, she paid thousands of pounds to an agency which took her out of Kosovo and across Europe to England.

Further north, Marija and her husband put their 12-year-old son on a one-way flight from Sarajevo to Belgrade to save him from persecution because of their mixed marriage as the nationalist conflict in former Yugoslavia escalated.

Marija, which is not her real name, followed two weeks later, eager not to leave him parentless.

"I didn't think the fighting would ever come to Belgrade," she says. "There were so many different nationalities there. I thought we could sit it out until it calmed down at home, and we would go back.

"But it did come to Belgrade. We slept every single night in a cellar. We never knew from which window, roof or balcony a sniper would be firing, but the children didn't understand. I just couldn't stop my son from going out to play. I was so terrified that one of those bullets would hit him.

"I really was close to breaking down. Eventually, we had to leave and we came to York where we had friends at the university."

Khalid, again not his real name, now lives in York after fleeing Algeria. An amateur painter, he came into conflict with Islamic fundamentalists over an exhibition of paintings they deemed sexually explicit.

He spent two weeks in hiding after receiving death threats, eventually managing to escape overseas. He has never been back.

Their experiences highlight what Refugee Week aims to achieve. As national hysteria is fuelled by tales of bogus asylum seekers seized upon by sections of the media, the week shows that many are forced to leave their homes by horrors most people could not even imagine.

Luljeta, who lives in London but came to York to speak at a benefit event earlier this week, told how her daughter, now seven, was still having therapy to deal with the horrific sights she saw as a three-year-old. "My home was completely destroyed, there was nothing left."

And Marija still yearns for her home and family, more than ten years after she had to abandon it.

She says: "I don't think people realise what it means to have to leave your country. I was pushed out. I had to leave behind everything I had. When I look around me now and see people complaining about something completely trivial, I think 'you don't know what a problem is.'

"I didn't want to come here. It was my first time in this country, I didn't speak any English and I didn't want to learn. I just wanted to go home.

"My husband is still in Bosnia. He stayed there because we never thought it would happen, or get as bad as it did.

"When I first came here I didn't know if he was still alive. I tried every single day to contact him, just to hear that he was still alive but, for two years, we knew nothing at all. I didn't see him for five years.

"He came over here for a visit and it was a big problem. When you live apart for such a long time you become completely different. When he came here he thought there was little electricity or water, he wouldn't have showers because he was used to not being able to, but for me it was difficult to understand why he did that.

"For him it's terrible. He has missed ten years of his son growing up, and nobody can ever replace that.

"When he came here, he found it difficult because his son was closer to other people than he was to his own father.

"I still miss home, but I have been here for ten years. I have built my life here and my son feels more English than Bosnian.

"My husband is allowed to join us, but he speaks no English. He is nearly 51-years-old and he would not like to be without a job. He feels every time he comes here he is a burden to me, and he does not want that.

"We are thinking very carefully what to do because it is very difficult to live like this."

Khalid first arrived in France after fleeing Algeria eight years ago, aged 27.

"I left on a cargo ship, but the French Government wasn't welcoming to Algerians.

"I didn't know anything about this country but in 1994, when I arrived, I thought it was the best country in the world. I met nice, friendly people and I felt I was very welcome. Even if they had bad feeling towards me, the British people didn't show me.

"I have been able to see my mother once by meeting up in Tunisia, but I can never go back to Algeria and I haven't seen my father since I left. But I always felt welcomed by the British."

But attitudes have changed, he claims. Since September 11, he has found it difficult to be a Muslim living in England. "It has become really, really hard," he says. "I haven't been able to work since. I believe in myself, I know I can work and I want to work. I do not like not supporting myself, but I cannot get anything.

"I am not somebody who came here because they were struggling financially. I came from a big family, we owned a business and had four shops. We were really doing well. But here I can't find work. Since September 11 I have applied for 22 jobs and I have had not one response. I applied for one using a Christian name, and was offered an interview. Obviously, I could not take it.

"The stress has caused me to suffer badly with psoriasis, which I never suffered from in Algeria. I can't go back to Algeria, but I can't make a life here.

"I don't know what to do."

Updated: 11:16 Wednesday, June 19, 2002