Serbian Novak Djokovic, the top-ranked tennis player and 10-time major champion, made a passionate plea for all countries to put their differences aside and offer help to the growing number of Syrian refugees.
“What’s happening in the Middle East has been some terrible circumstances with the war,” he said on Monday at the year-end event for men’s tennis, the World Tour Finals, in London. “From my perspective, I’m only an athlete, obviously I’m following this as a human being, at the end of the day we all have to be humans and feel for one another. We have to put that in front of all the laws and borders and different political stuff.”
… this was one of the most hurtful emotions and circumstances I could feel, I could be experiencing.
Djokovic has had first-hand experience with these refugees through UNICEF. He recounted visiting one of the hotels in Belgrade that is offering a temporary shelter for Syrians as they migrate west.
“It was really touching,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot because Serbia in the last 20 years has been through a lot of troubles, economic difficulties and war, and so forth. But this was one of the most hurtful emotions and circumstances I could feel, I could be experiencing.
“Honestly, playing with a child. Thirty seconds later the mother comes, she takes him away from me, she says, We have to go, we have to leave now, we have to walk for I don’t know how many miles to get to they don’t even know where. I mean, it’s terrible, honestly, what’s happening.”
The Serb has always been open about the impact that growing up in a war-torn country has had on him. In his book Serve to Win Djokovic recounted dodging NATO bombing runs as a 12-year old boy in Belgrade. One night, he tripped and fell during a bombing raid that his family barely escaped, as reported by Jay Busbee of Yahoo:
’And then it happened,’ he wrote. ‘From behind I heard something tearing open the sky, as though an enormous snow shovel were scraping ice off the clouds. Still sprawled on the ground, I turned and looked back at our home.’
What he saw next would stay with him forever.
‘Rising up from over the roof of our building came the steel gray triangle of an F-117 bomber. I watched in horror as its great metal belly opened directly above me, and two laser-guided missiles dropped out of it, taking aim at my family, my friends, my neighborhood — everything I’d ever known … I didn’t stop shivering for the rest of the night.’
During the Monday press conference, Djokovic stressed that the Syrian refugees in question are fleeing the ongoing violence in their country, not because they did anything wrong.
“If they don’t have a house, have nothing, where are they going to go? Of course, they have to search for some better place to live,” he said. “I think it’s an obligation of all the countries to give them this right, from the International Constitution of Human Rights. It’s very well written that you’re supposed to offer them at least a shelter.”
Since the terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday, many governors and Republican presidential candidates have been advocating for the United States close its border to Syrian refugees. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie doesn’t want the U.S. to accept even orphan refugees, while some candidates, such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Sen. Ted Cruz, think that only Christian refugees should be allowed in.
The Obama administration has remained adamant that it will continue to open its doors to those fleeing Syria, while keeping the extensive screening process in place. Of the 784,000 refugees the United States has taken in since 9/11, only three have been arrested for planning a terrorist attack.
“I’m very proud as a Serbian seeing what my people have done for these migrants, people that have suffered so much,” Djokovic said. “They offer them that shelter, home, food and drink. That’s the most basic things in life.”