The Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation against Italian tourists suspected of paying up to €100,000 (around R$611,000 at current prices) to shoot innocent people and children on hunting trips to a “human safari” in Sarajevo, in the 1990s, in the midst of the Bosnian War.
According to the newspaper La Repubblica, every Friday, “war tourists” traveled around 600 kilometers between Trieste, in northeastern Italy, and Sarajevo. First, they flew to Belgrade, Serbia, with the airline Aviogenex. They would then travel by helicopter or overland to the hills of the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where they would receive weapons and be positioned to shoot civilians.
The “excursions” took place between 1993 and 1995 and cost from €80,000 (R$489,000) to €100,000 per person – but those who wanted to shoot children had to pay an additional amount. The money was handed over to Serbian militia intermediaries.
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According to the report, the profile of the shooters did not change much: the majority were politicians or far-right sympathizers, who had a passion for weapons, liked to shoot – whether at shooting ranges or on hunting trips – and looked for forms of “sadistic” adrenaline. They were businessmen, doctors and mercenaries, aged between 40 and 50, who lived in the regions of Lombardy, Piedmont and Triveneto.
Prosecutors and the Special Operations Squadron (ROS) of the Carabinieri – one of Italy’s four Armed Forces – have already raised the names of witnesses who will be called to testify. Among them is a former employee of the Bosnian intelligence agency, who, according to La Repubblica, has already stated that Italy’s Military Intelligence and Security Service (Sismi) was alerted to the situation in early 1994.
“We discovered that the safari departed from Trieste. We have interrupted and the safari will no longer take place”, the corporation responded at the time. The former agent said that the matter was never discussed again between the two institutions.
A Slovenian officer, a firefighter and the parents of a one-year-old baby who was killed in “sniper alley” must also be heard. The firefighter testified at the trial of the former president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, where he had already mentioned “tourist shooters” with clothes and weapons that were out of context. “I am trained and know how to recognize when a child who does not know an area is led almost by the hand into it by someone who knows it well,” he said at the time.
Some of the “war tourists” have also been identified. One of them owned a private clinic in Milan. They must be tried for intentional homicide aggravated by cruelty and base motives.
The story has had repercussions since the release of the documentary “Sarajevo Safari”, by Slovenian director Miran Zupanic, which, in 2023, brought stories and testimonies about this period. The events were also reported by writer Ezio Gavazzeni, with the help of lawyer Nicola Brigida and former judge and lawyer Guido Salvini.
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This entire situation occurred amid the siege of Sarajevo, one of the bloodiest chapters of the Bosnian War, which took place between 1992 and 1995 during the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia (current Serbia). According to La Repubblica, more than 11 thousand civilians died – of these, 1,601 were children. The number of injured is estimated at 60 thousand.
