More than three decades after the brutal Siege of Sarajevo ended, Italian prosecutors in Milan have launched a formal investigation into harrowing allegations that wealthy Italian tourists, driven by a macabre fascination with firearms and far-right ideologies, paid exorbitant fees to Bosnian Serb forces for the privilege of shooting at trapped civilians. The probe, centered on crimes of intentional homicide aggravated by cruelty and vile motives, revives long-whispered rumors of "sniper tourism" or "human safaris" during the 1992-1996 Bosnian War—a period when the city endured one of the longest sieges in modern history, claiming over 11,000 lives, including thousands of non-combatants. These claims, detailed in a 17-page complaint filed earlier this year, paint a picture of affluent Europeans treating the warzone as a twisted hunting ground, with payments allegedly structured like a grim price list: higher fees for targeting children, followed by armed men, women, and the elderly—who, in some accounts, could be shot for free.
The investigation stems from a dossier compiled by Milan-based investigative journalist and writer Ezio Gavazzeni, supported by former anti-mafia magistrate Guido Salvini and lawyer Nicola Brigida. Gavazzeni, who first encountered reports of such atrocities in Italian media during the 1990s, deepened his probe after viewing the 2022 Slovenian documentary Sarajevo Safari by filmmaker Miran Zupanič. The film features anonymous testimonies from former Serb soldiers and contractors alleging that organized groups of Westerners—Italians prominent among them—were escorted to sniper positions overlooking the city, where they fired on residents scrambling for survival. "We are talking about wealthy people, with reputations—businessmen—who during the siege of Sarajevo paid to kill unarmed civilians," Gavazzeni told La Repubblica. "They left Trieste for a manhunt and then returned to their respectable daily lives."
According to the complaint, these "weekend snipers" typically gathered in Trieste, the Italian port city near the Slovenian border, before flying to Belgrade on Serbian airline Aviogenex. From there, they were allegedly transported by road or helicopter to the hills controlled by the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), the Bosnian Serb military under the command of indicted war criminal Radovan Karadžić. Fees reportedly ranged from €80,000 to €100,000 (equivalent to £70,000-£88,000 today), funneled to VRS members in exchange for weapons, vantage points, and safe passage back across borders riddled with checkpoints. Gavazzeni's sources include a former Bosnian intelligence officer identified only as "E.S.," who claims Bosnian authorities alerted Italian counterparts in the now-defunct SISMI (Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare) as early as 1993 about at least five Italians in sniper nests around the city. Another key witness is retired Bosnian Army Brigadier General Edin Subašić, who recounted interrogating a captured Serb soldier who admitted to facilitating Italian participants by providing rifles and positions in the Grbavica district.
The Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, led by Alessandro Gobbis, has delegated the case to the Carabinieri's elite Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale (ROS) anti-terrorism unit. Initial suspects—described as gun enthusiasts from northern Italy's far-right circles, including a Milanese cosmetic surgery clinic owner and residents of Turin and Trieste—remain unidentified publicly, listed as "persons unknown" to avoid tipping off potential witnesses. Prosecutors anticipate summoning up to a dozen individuals for testimony, drawing on Slovenian intelligence reports, victim statements, and declassified files from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. The statute of limitations does not apply to these aggravated homicide charges, offering a rare window for accountability decades later. Bosnian authorities, whose own probe was shelved amid post-war ethnic divisions, have pledged full cooperation; Consul General Dag Dumrukčić in Milan stated, "We are eager to settle accounts with the past. I am aware of information that I will contribute to the investigation."
To grasp the horror of these allegations, one must revisit the Siege of Sarajevo, which began on April 5, 1992, when Bosnian Serb forces, backed by Slobodan Milošević's Yugoslavia, encircled the multi-ethnic capital following Bosnia's declaration of independence from the crumbling Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. For 1,425 days—longer than the Siege of Leningrad in World War II—the city's 380,000 residents, a mix of Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs, endured relentless artillery barrages and sniper fire from Serb positions in the surrounding Trebević and Ozren hills. Utilities were severed: no electricity, gas, or running water for months on end, forcing families to melt snow for drinking and huddle in basements lit by candles scavenged from the dead. Markets became killing fields; the simple act of crossing open streets for bread or water turned routine errands into gambles with death.
At the epicenter was "Sniper Alley," a deadly stretch encompassing Ulica Zmaja od Bosne and Meša Selimović Boulevard, where exposed tramlines and intersections offered clear lines of sight for marksmen. French UN peacekeepers' armored personnel carriers became makeshift shields for terrified pedestrians sprinting in zigzags, their shadows flickering under sporadic gunfire. Iconic tragedies scarred the collective memory: the 1993 shooting of lovers Admira Ismić and Boško Brkić on the Vrbanja Bridge, immortalized as "Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo," or the 1994 marketplace massacre that killed 68 in seconds, prompting NATO airstrikes. By the siege's end in February 1996, under the Dayton Accords, 13,952 people had perished—5,434 civilians, including 1,600 children—with 56,000 wounded and the city reduced to rubble. The International Committee of the Red Cross documented over 10,000 sniper incidents alone, many targeting the vulnerable: elders foraging for firewood, mothers with infants, schoolchildren en route to makeshift classes.
The alleged "human safaris" would have amplified this nightmare, transforming passive terror into a spectator sport for outsiders. Gavazzeni estimates 100 or more Italians participated, part of a broader influx from the US, Russia, Germany, France, and Britain—individuals unburdened by ideology but thrilled by the adrenaline of live targets. One documented case involved Russian ultranationalist Eduard Limonov, filmed in 1992 firing alongside Karadžić, boasting of the "exhilaration." At the ICTY, former US Marine and Sarajevo firefighter John Jordan testified in 2007 about "tourist shooters" arriving with ill-suited hunting rifles, firing "pot shots at civilians for their own gratification" during Ratko Mladić's trial. Italian writer Adriano Sofri, who reported from the city in 1995, recalled in La Repubblica the "universally known" presence of these enthusiasts, including a Japanese volunteer who cited a "broken heart" as his motive for joining the fray.
Yet, the allegations face skepticism. Serbian war veterans dismiss them as "urban legends," while British troops who patrolled Sarajevo in the 1990s told the BBC they encountered no evidence of paid foreigners breaching the gauntlet of UN-monitored checkpoints. Logistical hurdles—smuggling civilians into active combat zones amid international observers—seem daunting, and no convictions have yet emerged from prior whispers. A Bosnian probe initiated by former Sarajevo Mayor Benjamina Karić stalled in 2023 due to evidentiary gaps and political fractures in a nation still healing from genocide convictions at The Hague. Karić, who gathered survivor accounts during her 2021-2024 tenure, called the Milan case a "tireless fight" for the voiceless, noting plans for a Sarajevo siege museum to preserve such truths.
Karadžić and his Sarajevo-Romanija Corps commander, Stanislav Galić, were ultimately held accountable: both sentenced to life in 2016 and 2003, respectively, for terrorizing civilians as a method of warfare. Karadžić serves in a UK prison; Galić in Germany. The Milan inquiry, if it yields indictments, could extend this reckoning to enablers and thrill-seekers, exposing how war's depravity lured spectators from afar. As Subašić reflected, "We've stopped it, and there will be no more safaris"—but only if justice pierces the veil of time.
For Sarajevo's survivors, the probe stirs raw grief. One anonymous victim, quoted in Sarajevo Safari, recalled the indiscriminate cracks of rifles: "You never knew if it was a soldier or some foreigner playing hunter." As the ROS sifts through archives and summons the living, the case underscores a haunting truth: in the shadow of Europe's last major war, evil found willing tourists. Whether these "safaris" were myth or monstrosity, the pursuit of proof honors the alley's ghosts, ensuring Sniper Alley's echoes demand answers, not oblivion.
