Did Wealthy Tourists Pay to Shoot Civilians in Sarajevo?

The term “human safaris” is used to describe situations in which vulnerable people are turned into objects of entertainment or targets for outsiders, often in a way reminiscent of trophy hunting. In some contexts this has meant tourists paying to observe isolated Indigenous communities as if they were part of a spectacle. In the case of Sarajevo during the 1992–1996 siege, the phrase has taken on a far darker meaning: allegations that wealthy foreigners paid large sums to travel into a war zone and shoot at civilians for sport.

Sarajevo was encircled by Bosnian Serb forces for nearly four years, during which its residents endured constant shelling and sniper fire. More than 11,000 people were killed, including many children. Snipers positioned in the hills and in high-rise buildings became a defining symbol of the siege, making everyday activities such as crossing a street or collecting water a potentially fatal risk. Against this backdrop, long-circulating rumours have claimed that some of the people behind those rifles were not regular soldiers but visiting “war tourists.”

According to recent reporting and legal filings, investigators in Italy are now examining claims that citizens of Italy and other countries paid the modern equivalent of tens of thousands of euros for short trips to sniper positions around the city. The foreigners are said to have included far-right sympathisers, gun enthusiasts and others who either supported the Bosnian Serb side or were attracted by the chance to experience combat. The allegation is that local Serb units allowed them to fire on the besieged population, effectively turning the front line into a grotesque shooting gallery.

These claims suggest that a kind of informal “price list” existed, with different sums allegedly charged depending on the type of target. In some versions of the story, children and armed men in uniform are described as “costing more,” while elderly civilians could be shot without any payment at all. No such list has been publicly produced or authenticated, but this detail has appeared in multiple accounts given to journalists and filmmakers, and is now being mentioned in formal complaints.

One of the key figures pressing the case in Italy is journalist and writer Ezio Gavazzeni. Drawing on material from Bosnian intelligence sources and other witnesses, he has argued that groups of Italians gathered in the city of Trieste during the war, then crossed into Bosnia and were taken up to the Serb positions overlooking Sarajevo for “weekend” shooting excursions. He has expressed particular horror at the idea that some of these individuals later resumed respectable middle-class lives, never facing accountability for what he describes as a form of paid manhunt.

A former Bosnian intelligence officer, Edin Subašić, is reported to have provided important early testimony. During the war he interrogated captured Serb soldiers. In at least one case, he says, a prisoner described Italians who had paid to use sniper rifles on the front line. That account, together with other intelligence references, helped support later media investigations and eventually fed into legal complaints.

The idea of “tourist shooters” also appears in testimony given to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague. In 2007, a former United States Marine named John Jordan told judges that he had observed individuals in the Serb-held Grbavica district who did not seem to be local fighters. He described them as “tourists” who came to fire weapons at the city. His account did not prove that money changed hands, but it added weight to the broader claim that foreign civilians may have participated in sniper attacks during the siege.

In 2022, the Slovenian documentary “Sarajevo Safari,” directed by Miran Zupanič, focused directly on these allegations. The film includes interviews with former intelligence officers and an unnamed American who says he saw outsiders paying to shoot at Sarajevo’s residents. The director has said that he initially doubted such a thing could have happened, describing his first reaction as disbelief that anyone would pay to be allowed to kill people. Over time, he concluded that at least some of the stories were credible enough to merit public scrutiny.

The documentary’s release provoked an angry response from Bosnian Serb politicians and veterans’ associations. They denounced the film as a fabrication designed to smear the Republika Srpska entity and its wartime forces, and some called it an insult to Serb victims of the conflict. Officials rejected the notion that any “human safaris” could have taken place with the knowledge or approval of their military structures, framing the allegations as part of a one-sided narrative of the war.

Even among analysts who take the allegations seriously, there is caution about their scale. Some experts on the Balkans, including journalists who spent extensive time in Bosnian Serb headquarters during the war, say they never personally encountered suspicious groups of foreign visitors. They accept that small numbers of individuals may have come and gone without notice, but doubt that the phenomenon involved large crowds or a significant flow of people. At present there are no reliable figures for how many alleged “tourist snipers” may have been involved, and the available estimates are speculative.

The Italian investigation is still at an early stage. Prosecutors in Milan, working with a specialist police unit normally focused on terrorism and organised crime, are attempting to identify specific Italian nationals who might have travelled to Bosnia, participated in sniper attacks and returned home. The potential charges under consideration include aggravated homicide. The case has been bolstered by a criminal complaint filed by former Sarajevo mayor Benjamina Karić, targeting “persons unknown,” and by a detailed dossier prepared by Gavazzeni and a small legal team. Whether this will lead to indictments or convictions depends on the investigators’ ability to link names, travel patterns and witness accounts into concrete, court-ready evidence.

It is important to note that, so far, no alleged participant in these “human safaris” has been publicly named and convicted in connection with such acts, and no financial records or operational orders have been made public that incontrovertibly prove a paid system of sniper tourism. Much of the story rests on intelligence reports, anonymous testimony and recollections decades after the events. Supporters of the allegations argue that this is unsurprising, given the chaos of war and the passage of time. Critics counter that the lack of direct, documentary proof should make observers cautious.

The Sarajevo story can also be seen as part of a broader discussion about “human safaris” in other settings. In places like India’s Andaman Islands, activists have used this phrase to condemn organised tours that treat Indigenous peoples as spectacles. In those cases, tourists may not be armed, but the underlying pattern is similar: outsiders paying for an experience in which the humanity and dignity of local people are ignored. The Sarajevo allegations take this logic to an extreme, suggesting not just voyeurism but active, paid participation in killing.

Three decades after the siege began, the notion that civilians could have been hunted for sport by visiting foreigners remains deeply disturbing. For survivors of Sarajevo, it touches on the most traumatic aspects of the war: the sense of being trapped and exposed, targeted even in the most ordinary moments of daily life. For legal authorities in Italy and Bosnia, it raises unresolved questions about impunity and the limits of postwar justice. And for historians, it illustrates the difficulty of reconstructing events in which rumour, propaganda, intelligence work and lived experience are closely intertwined.

Until and unless courts establish the facts with greater certainty, the allegations of “human safaris” in Sarajevo will sit in a grey zone between documented war crimes and unproven atrocity stories. The challenge for journalism and scholarship alike is to acknowledge both the gravity of the claims and the gaps in the record, keeping the focus on careful verification rather than sensationalism, while recognising that even the possibility of such behaviour reveals something unsettling about the darker edges of war, tourism and human curiosity.

Sources:

– Nick Squires, “Wealthy foreigners ‘paid £80k for weekend safaris to kill civilians’ in Sarajevo,” The Telegraph, Nov. 11, 2025.([Telegraph][1])

– TVP World, “Rich tourists paid €80,000 to ‘shoot civilians on human safaris’ during Bosnian war,” Nov. 2025.([TVP World][2])

– The Week, “Who were the ‘weekend snipers’ of Sarajevo?” Nov. 2025.([The Week][3])

– The Times (London), “Wealthy foreigners ‘paid for chance to shoot civilians in Sarajevo’,” Nov. 2025.([The Times][4])

– New York Post, “Rich ‘sniper tourists’ allegedly paid $90K to shoot civilians — including kids — during ‘human safari’ trips to Sarajevo,” Nov. 12, 2025.([New York Post][5])

– New Lines Magazine, “Documentary film alleges that foreigners took part in ‘civilian hunting’ in Bosnian capital,” Nov. 14, 2022.([New Lines Magazine][6])

– ANSA / CEI, “Bosnia: documentary tells story about ‘human safari’,” Aug. 31, 2022.([CEI][7])

– Cineuropa, “Sarajevo Safari,” film synopsis, 2022.([Cineuropa][8])

– ICTY, Prosecutor v. Dragomir Milošević, testimony of John Jordan, Trial Transcript, Feb. 22, 2007.([ICTY][9])

– Hoodline, “New York firefighter witnessed ‘sniper tourists’ hunting Bosnian civilians, Italy now investigating,” Nov. 2025.([Hoodline][10])

– Survival International, “Outrage as tour operators sell ‘human safaris’ to Andaman Islands’ Jarawa tribe,” Oct. 17, 2017.([Survival International][11])

– David Hill, “‘Human safaris’ pose threat to uncontacted Amazon tribe,” The Guardian, Feb. 25, 2012.([The Guardian][12])

– J. Liljeblad, “Human Safaris: A Foucauldian Alternative to the Law’s Treatment of Indigenous Peoples,” academic commentary on “human safaris” and Jarawa videos, 2014.([researchportalplus.anu.edu.au][13])

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