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Admir Cejvanovic doesn’t remember much about the refugee camp nestled on the border of Croatia and his native Bosnia.

Just a toddler at the time, he lived there with his mother under the protection of the United Nations for about six months as the Balkan region descended into a series of wars in the early 1990s.

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“I have a couple of glimpses of what it was like,” said Cejvanovic. “It wasn’t too difficult for the kids.

“A lot of us were just ignorant to what was going on.”

The pair would eventually find their way to a town in Croatia and then finally the Vancouver area as sponsored refugees by the time Admir was four.

“My life in Canada, for me it’s like winning the lottery,” said Cejvanovic, now 26. “If I’d stayed back there my life would have been a lot different.”

Cejvanovic will play his fifth game for the Canadian men’s rugby team Saturday when it hosts the United States.

The Americas Rugby Championship test match will be Cejvanovic’s first for Canada in Burnaby, where his family put down roots and he learned the sport he now loves.