British ‘sniper tourists paid to shoot at children’ in Sarajevo siege

‘Sniper tourists’ from Britain spent tens of thousands of pounds to travel to Sarajevo to shoot at civilians during the Bosnian-Serb army’s siege in the 1990s, it has been alleged.

More than 30 years after the military blockade of Sarajevo – the longest in modern history in which almost 14,000 were killed – prosecutors in Milan have opened an investigation into Italian tourists, accusing them of paying £70,000 to join a ‘human safari’.

These claims are based on witness statements collected by journalist and writer Ezio Gavazzeni, who has now said that UK citizens also took part in the ‘murder tourism’.

He revealed to El Mundo that the wealthy clients travelled from a number of countries: the UK, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, the US and Canada.

These were individuals who paid to kill children, adults, and the elderly – for sport – hiding in the hills surrounding the Bosnian capital.

‘I was surprised when the rumours circulated about what was happening in Sarajevo without anyone investigating it further,’ Gavazzeni said.’

He added: ‘My hope is that a domino effect will occur. Among other things, because I have been the only one to initiate criminal proceedings in a Western country.

‘Why did no country ever open an investigation? Perhaps because they are powerful, wealthy, and socially influential people.’

Gavazzeni shared his shock that ‘no one has been interested’ in the matter in the last 30 years.

After the premiere of Miran Zupani’s documentary Sarajevo Safari in 2022, he said that no Western television network bought the rights to broadcast it.

So far, Italian prosecutors have not named any suspects, but they could do so soon.

Gavazzeni says he was in touch with individuals, including a member of the Bosnian secret service, who talked about Italian ‘sniper tourists’.

He previously add: ‘There were no political or religious motivations. They were rich people who went there for fun and personal satisfaction.

‘We are talking about people who love guns who perhaps go to shooting ranges or on safari in Africa.’

The journalist claimed the Italian suspects would meet in the northern city of Trieste and travel to Belgrade, from where the Bosnian-Serb soldiers would accompany them to the hills of Sarajevo.

They paid an additional fee to kill children with the sniper rifles, according to the court filing.

‘There was a traffic of war tourists who went to there to shoot people,’ he said. ‘I call it an indifference towards evil.’

Former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and the commander of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, Stanislav Galic, were both found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Hague over the attack.

Both were eventually handed sentences of life imprisonment. Karadzic is serving his sentence in the UK, while Galic was taken to Germany.

The siege in Sarajevo ended in 1995, leaving 13,952 people dead. 5,434 of these casualties were civilians. 

By the end of the Bosnian War, more than 100,000 people had been killed and some 2 million were forced to flee their homes.

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