Calgary man searching for group that helped him immigrate to Canada 3 decades ago
Ivo Ceko was a member of a military police unit that was guarding a hotel in a town in central Bosnia when he met a group of young Canadians and Americans in the summer of 1994.
His English wasn't very good back then, and they couldn't speak fluent Croatian – but they managed to exchange some sentences.
"We chat, we laugh," he recalled in a recent phone interview. "I didn’t expect anything from that (meeting)."
When a young woman in the group told Ceko that she was travelling home to Canada and asked if she could bring him anything back, he jokingly responded: "Get me a passport."
"'Really, you want to get out from here?'" he remembered her asking. "I say, 'who wouldn't?' It was a desperate situation."
Three weeks later, the man in his 30s received a brown envelope. Inside were blank Canadian immigration forms and a pair of socks. He filled out the paperwork, applied for a visa and arrived in Canada in March 1997.
Now, nearly three decades later, Ceko is looking to reconnect with the group to tell them how grateful he and his family are for what they did.
"I just want to find them and say thank you and, you know, hug them and maybe have a drink with them," Ceko said from Calgary.
Ceko doesn’t remember much about the five or six men and women who helped him, asides from that they were in their twenties and had a guitar.
He thinks they might have Croatian roots as they were visiting after Croatia announced its independence in 1991 – and during the brutal civil war that broke out within the former Yugoslavia in the years after – to see how things were going in their newly founded ancestral country.
They could have also been employees of charities affiliated with churches that were involved in delivering aid to the desperate population back then.
He said the members of the United Nations peacekeeping forces were in the town and at the hotel, but he doesn’t think the group was part of any military.
The news that he had received the forms travelled fast across Novi Travnik, a small town where everyone knew everyone. Soon, friends showed up, asking if they could make photocopies.
Ceko said he doesn't know how many people actually immigrated to Canada using the photocopies, but he is sure that a few – including one of his friends – did.
Until now, Ceko hasn't had time to think about reconnecting with those who helped him. He's spent the past 26 years raising two children, sending them off to university, and starting a flooring business.
He closed his business when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. His children are now grown and living on their own. As his 60th birthday closes in, he said it is the right time to start the search.
"I always have (finding them) on my mind, but I didn't have the time. Now I have time," he said.
Last week, with the help of his daughter, he wrote a post sharing his story on a Croatian-Canadian Facebook page.
So far, he hasn't uncovered any leads, but he hopes he will eventually get "lucky" enough to meet the group that changed his life.
"I am going to tell them the happy story," he said. "They probably forget about that, but I didn't."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Maple Leafs fall to Bruins in Game 3, trail series 2-1
Brad Marchand scored twice, including the winner in the third period, and added an assist as the Boston Bruins downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round playoff series Wednesday
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
New Indigenous loan guarantee program a 'really big deal,' Freeland says at Toronto conference
Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was among the 1,700 delegates attending the two-day First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference that concluded Tuesday in Toronto.
'Life was not fair to him': Daughter of N.B. man exonerated of murder remembers him as a kind soul
The daughter of a New Brunswick man recently exonerated from murder, is remembering her father as somebody who, despite a wrongful conviction, never became bitter or angry.