December the 31st, 2020 – On the very last day of what has been an absolutely horrendous year, the funeral of tragic 13-year-old Laura who lost her life during the devastating Petrinja earthquake is set to take place.
Index/Martina Paucek Sljivak sat down and talked to Laura’s grieving stepfather Darko Culig, who spoke about what young Laura was like.
“I want people to know what a special girl she was. She was cheerful, happy and she loved singing and dancing more than anything else, she was so generous, she had such a big heart. On December the 22nd, she turned 13 and got some money from her grandparents for her birthday and she spent it on buying us all Christmas presents. She was amazing,” Laura’s severely shaken stepfather says as he begins his story.
“Laura was special”
He tells us how he met Laura when she was eight years old.
“Although at first it was hard for her to get used me as well as her dad’s new wife, we later developed a very special relationship, I loved her so much. Laura had a little brother, Filip, on her father’s side, who is still a baby. We both had a wonderful relationship, full of love and trust. She would confide in me about something rather than to her biological parents, I was a person she trusted, she would be the first to reveal some things to me, who she liked, and if she did something wrong, she would often say to me: ”Darko, come on, be on my side.”
She loved singing and dancing, we should’ve sent her to some supertalent show, even as a child she loved to entertain people, do impressions of them, she loved to watch the Dobro jutro komisija series, that was her favourite series, we always called her little Vidoslava after one of the characters from the series because she had a bun like her. She was always cheerful and smiling. She never wanted for anything, she was extremely modest, generous, she thought of all of us all the time, she went constantly to visit her grandparents to see how they were doing. In the evenings she loved to joke around with me, she played all the time,” Laura’s stepfather described to Index.
We could all hear in the video the painful cries of his wife Snjezana, Laura’s mother who found her child dead following the Petrinja earthquake, and there is nothing worse than that…
He and his wife are now sleeping in the car, and he described what happened on the fateful morning of the Petrinja earthquake.
“My wife got an injection right away that day, she’s on pills now, this is unimaginably difficult, but she’s also incredibly strong. The day it happened, Laura was in town with her grandmother, aunt and cousin. I was in the house and I barely escaped from it, my wife was at work. I couldn’t get her on the phone. I went out to my car to get to town somehow and then I noticed my wife, she said to me: Take me to the square, something has happened to Laura. She was called by her ex-husband, Laura’s father, who was called to say that Laura had died, you know everything else,” a traumatised Darko explained.
“We are all together with my in-laws, three families, so it’s a little easier for her, we talk all the time about Laura, what she was like, what she loved to do, but today it will be very difficult. “Even though it was said that the funeral should be in the family circle only, I can’t tell anyone not to come, whoever wants to, they can come,” Darko said, added that he must be strong for the sake of his wife, as she needs to lean on him.
The two of them have been sleeping in the car in front of their mother-in-law’s house for two days now. So far, he says, they have enough food, and Snjezana’s parents’ neighbour from the coast has also published Darko’s bank account details, to which people can pay their donations should they be in the position to do so.
“She was supposed to come home at noon today.”
He confirmed to Index that the account details published were indeed his and that people had already started paying.
“I’ve heard that some have already started with fake accounts, but the one that was published is ours, the donations are coming, but I wouldn’t like them to pay only to us, pay to others, too, please, it’s hard for everyone. And when I remember saying to Laura that she’d be coming home today at noon because I’m cooking lunch. She’d been at her dad’s for the festive period since December the 26th and she was supposed to come home today, and instead we’re seeing her off and bidding her farewell, I still just can’t believe it,” Darko uttered.
Anyone who wants and can help with donations to Darko’s family can make a payment in the name of Darko Culig, HR1524840083235299861. For payments from abroad: BIC: RZBHHR2XXXX.
For more on the Petrinja earthquake, please follow our dedicated section.
