100 thousand euro for hunting people. “Tourists” paid extra to shoot… children in Sarajevo

“Tourists-snipers” paid the equivalent of today's PLN 80,000. up to 100 thousand euro for the opportunity to shoot at the inhabitants of Sarajevo during the siege of the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war of the 1990s – reported the British daily “Daily Telegraph”.

The prosecutor's office in Milan is investigating reports that in the 1990s, during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, trips to besieged Sarajevo were organized so that participants could shoot at civilians. Prosecutors were informed about the case by journalist Ezio Gavazzeni, who learned about it from a former Bosnian intelligence officer.

The Italians involved were to gather in the north-eastern border city of Trieste and be transported to the Serb-held hills surrounding Sarajevo. Prosecutors in Milan are trying to identify Italians allegedly involved in the killings and may charge them with “intentional murder with particular cruelty and nefarious motives.”

Witnesses and Italian investigators reported the existence of a price list – foreigners paid more to shoot children and men armed and in uniform. Amateur snipers paid the equivalent of today's PLN 80,000. up to 100 thousand euro for participating in this “activity”, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Former US Marine John Jordan testified before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia established by the United Nations in 2007 that “sniper tourists” came to Sarajevo to shoot civilians for their own pleasure. He added that the man he saw and whom he knew was involved in shooting civilians was using a gun like a “novice.”

Tim Judah, a British expert on the Balkans, noted that the number of people who came to Sarajevo for this purpose was not large. “Between 1992 and 1995, I spent a lot of time in Pale, where the headquarters of the Bosnian Serb forces were, and I didn't hear anything about it,” he told the Daily Telegraph.

“I'm not saying it didn't happen. There may have been people willing to pay for it. But I don't think the numbers are big,” he added.

A documented case of shooting civilians by visitors is the example of the Russian writer, journalist and politician, leader of the radical National Bolshevik Party, Eduard Limonov, whose shooting with a machine gun at the inhabitants of Sarajevo was filmed in 1992. Limonov died in Moscow in 2020 at the age of 77.

The case is also covered in the documentary “Sarajevo Safari”, shot in 2022 by Slovenian director Miran Zupanić. (PAP)

jbw/ mal/