I have no words.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne...d-kill-children.html

03:55 EST 12 Nov 2025, updated 05:00 EST 12 Nov 2025
By IMOGEN GARFINKEL - SENIOR FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER

Prosecutors in Milan have opened an investigation into Italian tourists who allegedly paid £70,000 to shoot innocent people in 'human safari' hunting trips to Sarajevo, with extra charged to kill children.

The wealthy foreign gun enthusiasts are accused of travelling to the city for 'sniper tourism' during its four-year siege in the 1990s by Serb-Bosnian militias amid the Bosnian War.

Between 1992 and 1996, more than 10,000 people were killed in Sarajevo by shelling and sniper fire in the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.

The tourists, who are understood to have had ties to hard-right circles, allegedly paid members of the Bosnian Serb army for weekend trips to the besieged city where they participated in the massacre of residents for pleasure.

According to the case, they flew from Trieste to Belgrade on the Serbian airline Aviogenex to be 'weekend snipers' and join in the bloody siege, reportedly paying between £70,000 and £88,000.

The killing of children cost more, El Pais reported.

The investigation originated from a 17-page legal complaint submitted by Milan-based writer and journalist Ezio Gavazzeni, with the support of former magistrate Guido Salvini and Benjamina Karic, mayor of Sarajevo from 2021 to 2024.

The allegations came to light in the 2022 documentary 'Sarajevo Safari' by Slovenian filmmaker Miran Zupanic, who gathered testimonies about the possibility of wealthy Italians and other nationalities paying to travel to Sarajevo to shoot at residents.

The tourists are accused of having paid large amounts of money to troops from Radovan Karadžić's army, the former Bosnian Serb leader who in 2016 was sentenced to 40 years for genocide and other crimes against humanity.

The moneyed foreigners were allegedly transported to the hills surrounding Sarajevo to take aim at passersby, whose everyday lives were tainted by the fear of being targeted indiscriminately by gunmen during the city's siege.

Streets such as Ulica Zmaja od Bosne and Meša Selimović Boulevard, the main road running into Sarajevo, were nicknamed 'Sniper Alley' because of the extreme danger they posed to residents.

Meša Selimović Boulevard could not be avoided, however, as it was the way to Sarajevo airport.

The Bosnian Attorney General’s Office apparently shelved an investigation into the 'sniper tourism' because of the difficulty of probing such a case in a country still deeply scarred and divided by war, Gavazzeni told la Repubblica on Tuesday.

'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 daily lives,' he said.

Lead prosecutor Alessandro Gobbi is understood to have a list of several people who can provide testimony and may be called to give evidence.

Gavazzeni said that there could be up to 100 tourists who took part in the mass-shooting of civilians for weekend sport.

The case mentions a Milanese businessman who owns a private cosmetic surgery clinic, as well as citizens from Turin and Trieste, Le Pais reported.

'I hope they can locate at least one or two, maybe 10,' he said.

The journalist said that one of the witnesses includes a Bosnian intelligence agent with the initials E. S., who claimed Italian intelligence had information about the allegations in 1993 and that classified files on the case still exist.

Apparently, Bosnian intelligence warned of the presence of at least five Italians in the hills around Sarajevo, accompanied there to shoot at civilians, according to the witness.

Other witnesses include a Slovenian intelligence official, victims, and a wounded firefighter who, during the 2002 trial of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague, described 'tourist shooters' with distinctive clothing and weapons that distinguished them from Serbian soldiers.

The Bosnian consul in Milan, Dag Dumrukcic, told la Repubblica that Italy had the 'full cooperation' of his country’s government.

'We are eager to uncover the truth about such a cruel matter and settle accounts with the past. I am aware of some information that I will contribute to the investigation,' he said.

The depravity of man knows no limits

This is just plain sick and makes me want to vomit.

There were similar reports of Eurotrash going on human hunting trips during the civil war in Beirut.

This is disgusting.

I was living in Europe during this time, and our school took in some Bosnian refugee kids for a few weeks before they moved on to somewhere else. I also remember reading first-hand accounts of people in Sarajevo trying to navigate "sniper alley" to go about their daily lives trying to get food and other supplies while snipers took pot shots at them.

It was bad enough to think that some enemy soldier was sitting out there shooting at non-combatants for no reason. It's even worse to consider the possibility that some rich foreign asshole was paying to do it for fun. If this really happened I hope they can prove it and these pieces of shit get shipped to Bosnia for execution.

I guess Hollywood was not far off with their movies with that theme. I guess I never thought it would actually happen. There have always existed humans like those that paid to kill other humans, depraved, inhumane people. But with our “advanced society” we are more apt to know about it than prior to the 1900’s.

I was living in Germany then, worked at the Bayer factory. Most of my co-workers were Kosovar Albanians and those guys hated Serbs like Palestineans hate Israelis. Some of those guys took vacation time to go back to fight for a few weeks, then came back to work. There was one Serb in our bldg, but he couldn't be on the same shifts as the Kosovars. They'd have fed him into a milling machine. You have to be trained how to hate like that. It doesn't come naturally.

So that movie Hostel was actually a documentary and not a fictional horror? Holy crap.

Jeremiah 17:9

[9] The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it? (ESV)

As history has demonstrated countless times, there is literally nothing that human beings are incapable of doing to each other.

One of the things my wife brought back from her time in Sarajevo was a map of the city showing the areas most dangerous due to sniper fire. By then it was just a souvenir for visitors, but it was based on what had been true.

quote:

The tourists, who are understood to have had ties to hard-right circles

That's an interesting throw-away line, from the article in the OP. Wonder what's up with that?

With regard to the people of Italy, it would be tied to those who are current "remnants" of the Mussolini Fascists era.

Not the American right. (although some continue to try and make that co-equal in the minds of many)

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:

quote:

The tourists, who are understood to have had ties to hard-right circles

That's an interesting throw-away line, from the article in the OP. Wonder what's up with that?

Hard-line neo-naziism and fascism are alive and well in Europe as a more significant subculture than most normal folks like to admit. It's got nothing to do with US politics.

This story rings as bullshit to me. Sensationalist clickbait. Now if Elvis was spotted taking part, while wearing a big foot mask I would be all in.

quote:

Originally posted by Stlhead:
This story rings as bullshit to me.

That’s possible, of course, but of all the bizarre stories I can think of that might be true, it’s near the top of my list.

The “ethnic cleansing” efforts directed against the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) population included known atrocities that were different in kind from indiscriminate sniping, but fundamentally no less outrageous. There are many people who believe that the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim, and therefore is it possible that there are some extremists who would have been willing to help make that happen themselves?

Why do you believe it’s BS?

It would be interesting to know the truth.

Was it "sniper tourism" or were they paying money to play army in a real war? The killing that went on there was happening either way.

quote:

Originally posted by bigwagon:
Was it "sniper tourism" or were they paying money to play army in a real war?

.


In Beirut it was psychopathic depraved murder at distance.

It was not joining up with a military or paramilitary.

I seem to remember this going nowhere years ago when this came up last time.

Whether the story is true or not, that it is believable (at least to me), speaks volumes.

There was a rumor that they were doing this in Lebanon at the height of the fighting there. It was a way for the different factions to raise money and purchase weapons and ammo.