• The rich pay more to kill children, women

European investigators have reopened inquiries into disturbing claims that wealthy foreigners paid tens of thousands of pounds in the 1990s to shoot at civilians trapped in the Bosnian War.

Italian prosecutors are examining allegations that gun enthusiasts and far-right sympathizers from Italy, the United States, Russia and other countries travelled to Sarajevo during its four-year siege to take part in deadly sniper attacks for sport.

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According to reports cited by La Repubblica newspaper, the so-called “war tourists” allegedly paid Serbian forces the modern equivalent of £80,000 to £100,000 to fire on civilians from positions around the city. Witnesses claim there was even a price list, with higher fees charged to shoot children or uniformed men, and elderly victims reportedly targeted for free.

The renewed investigation, led by Milan prosecutors and supported by Italy’s specialist Carabinieri anti-terrorism unit, follows a legal complaint filed by Benjamina Karic, a former mayor of Sarajevo, “against persons unknown.” Karic said the case aims to bring long-overdue accountability for atrocities committed during the 1992–1996 siege, which killed more than 11,500 people.

Italian journalist and writer Ezio Gavazzeni, who helped revive the investigation with legal backing from two lawyers and a retired judge, described the killings as a “macabre human safari.” He told La Repubblica that wealthy Italians had travelled from Trieste to the hills above Sarajevo “for a manhunt,” before returning home to resume their normal lives.

“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,” Gavazzeni said. “They played God — and have remained unpunished.”

Mass grave in Sarajevo

A former Bosnian intelligence officer, Edin Subasic, told investigators that a captured Serbian soldier had described how Italians paid to fire sniper rifles at civilians. The claim echoes earlier testimony at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. In 2007, former US Marine John Jordan told the tribunal he had seen foreign “tourist shooters” arrive in Sarajevo carrying high-powered rifles and behaving like novices.

The presence of “weekend snipers” was reportedly confirmed at the time by SISMI, Italy’s intelligence agency, though Serbia has denied the claims.

Some experts have urged caution. British journalist and Balkans specialist Tim Judah said that while the idea of foreigners paying to shoot civilians was “possible,” the numbers were likely small. “There were some Russians and Greeks fighting as volunteers, but we didn’t notice strange foreigners turning up,” he told The Telegraph.

The allegations gained renewed attention after the 2022 Slovenian documentary Sarajevo Safari by filmmaker Miran Zupanic, which explored claims of “human safaris” for wealthy thrill-seekers. The film featured testimony from a former American intelligence officer who said he witnessed foreigners paying to shoot at besieged civilians in Sarajevo’s Grbavica district.

“When I first heard the story, I thought it was impossible — that hunting people was an urban legend,” Zupanic told Balkan Insight. “But the more I learned, the more horrifying it became. That knowledge is something that is impossible to bear.”

The documentary provoked outrage among Bosnian Serb veterans’ groups, who denounced it as “an absolute and heinous lie.” Veljko Lazic, head of a veterans’ organisation in Republika Srpska, said the film was “an insult to the Serb people, their army, and the victims of the war.”

The ongoing Italian probe is expected to review archival intelligence material and testimony from witnesses in Bosnia and Italy. Prosecutors have said that, if confirmed, the alleged acts could amount to “voluntary homicide aggravated by cruelty and abject motives.”