Sniper vacationers’ allegedly paid £70,000 to shoot civilians in ‘human safaris’
The snipers were considered the most feared element of life under siege in Sarajevo as they would pick off people on the streets at random, including small children
Wealthy “war tourists” paid tens of thousands of pounds to shoot innocent civilians in “human safari” trips to Sarajevo during the four-year siege of the city – and forked out extra to kill kids, it is claimed. Gun nuts and far-right extremists travelled to the war-torn city with sniper rifles to pick off terrified Bosnians “for fun” during the bloody Bosnian Warin the 1990s, prosecutors in Italy claim.
The foreigners, from Italy, the US and Russia among other places, are accused of paying Serbian forces to take part in the shooting spree during the longest siege in modern history.
More than 10,000 people were killed in Sarajevo by constant shelling and sniper fire between 1992 and 1996.
The “sniper tourists” are alleged to have participated in the massacre after paying troops between £70,000 and £88,000. The killing of children cost even more, it is claimed in Italian newspaper La Republicca. Serbia has denied the claims.
But witnesses and Italian investigators claim there was even a price list for the targeted killings – foreigners would pay more to shoot children and men who were armed and in uniform.
The “weekend snipers” were allegedly allowed to shoot at civilians by Bosnian Serb militias under the command of warlord Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian-Serb leader who in 2016 was sentenced to 40 years for genocide.
Prosecutors in Milan are trying to identify Italians who were allegedly involved in the killings and could bring charges of “voluntary homicide aggravated by cruelty and abject motives”.
They are being assisted by officers from a specialist unit of the Carabinieri police, known as the Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale, which fights terrorism and organised crime.
The chilling claims first emerged in a 2022 documentary called Sarajevo Safari in which Slovenian director Miran Zupanic gathered testimonies about foreigners embarking on “weekend war safaris”.
The case has been taken up by an Italian journalist Ezio Gavazzeni, with the backing of former magistrate Guido Salvini and Benjamina Karic, mayor of Sarajevo from 2021 to 2024.
Mr Gavazzeni said: “There was a price tag for these killings: children cost more, then men, preferably in uniform and armed, women, and finally old people, who could be killed for free.
“We are talking about wealthy people, with reputations – businessmen – who during the siege of Sarajevo paid to kill unarmed civilians. They left Trieste for a manhunt and then returned to their respectable lives.”
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