Italian prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into allegations that wealthy foreign tourists paid tens of thousands of dollars in the 1990s to travel to besieged Sarajevo and shoot at civilians for sport, a scheme that has been described by witnesses as a “human safari”.
The inquiry, led by prosecutors in Milan, centres on claims that during the Bosnian War a network of intermediaries arranged weekend trips for affluent gun enthusiasts to reach sniper positions in the hills surrounding the city, where they allegedly fired on unarmed residents in streets that had already become notorious killing zones.
According to a complaint submitted to Milan’s Attorney General’s Office, the alleged clients were mainly Italian but may have included other Western nationals such as Americans, Germans, French and Russians. They were said to be civilians with far-right links and an interest in weapons, rather than combatants formally enlisted with Bosnian Serb forces. The complaint suggests they paid the equivalent of up to about €80,000–€100,000, or roughly $90,000, to be transported from Italy to Serbia and then on to sniper positions around Sarajevo for weekend trips in which they could fire on people crossing exposed streets below. Some accounts claim that higher fees were charged if the targets were children.
The case has moved beyond rumour after Milanese writer and journalist Ezio Gavazzeni filed a 17-page dossier summarising testimony he gathered over several years. Support for the complaint has come from former investigating magistrate Guido Salvini and from Benjamina Karić, the lawyer and politician who served as mayor of Sarajevo from 2021 to 2024 and has collected information on the long-circulating claims.
Gavazzeni’s file reportedly includes statements from individuals who say they had direct knowledge of foreigners being escorted to the hills alongside Bosnian Serb units during the city’s siege. One key witness is described as a former Bosnian intelligence officer, identified in reports only by initials, who says local intelligence services observed at least several Italian nationals at sniper positions and warned counterparts that wealthy foreigners were being allowed to shoot at civilians. Another witness cited in the complaint is a Slovenian intelligence officer, while additional testimony is said to come from victims and a firefighter wounded during the war who had previously mentioned “tourist shooters” in proceedings at the international tribunal in The Hague.
Prosecutor Alessandro Gobbi is reported to have compiled a list of potential witnesses who will be called in the coming months. At this stage, the investigation is formally directed at “unknown persons”, and no suspects have yet been publicly named or charged. Italian media say the possible crimes under examination include voluntary homicide aggravated by cruelty and vile motives, which under Italian law can carry some of the heaviest penalties.
The alleged “human safaris” are said to have taken place during the four-year siege of Sarajevo between 1992 and 1996, when Bosnian Serb forces encircled the city following Bosnia and Herzegovina’s declaration of independence from Yugoslavia. More than 10,000 people were killed in the siege, many of them in sniper attacks on civilians attempting to cross open ground to reach work, food distribution points or water sources. Main thoroughfares such as Meša Selimović Boulevard became so dangerous that they were widely known as “Sniper Alley”, and images of residents running between improvised barricades became emblematic of the conflict.
According to the complaint, the tourists allegedly travelled from the Italian city of Trieste to Belgrade on flights operated by the Serbian airline Aviogenex, which at the time linked the two cities. From Belgrade, they were reportedly driven to positions in the hills above Sarajevo controlled by Bosnian Serb units loyal to the leadership of Radovan Karadžić, who was later convicted of genocide and other crimes against humanity at the UN tribunal in The Hague. Once there, the foreigners were said to be given rifles and ammunition and allowed to fire at people in the city below.
Gavazzeni has said in interviews that the people he is seeking to expose were “wealthy, respectable” figures, including businessmen who could afford to pay very large sums for the experience and then return quietly to their normal lives in Italy. Media reports quoting his complaint suggest that as many as 100 individuals may have taken part over the course of the conflict, though investigators have not confirmed any figure.
The allegations first broke into wider public view through the 2022 documentary “Sarajevo Safari” by Slovenian filmmaker Miran Zupanič. The film brought together accounts from people who claimed that, during the siege, wealthy foreigners were brought to the city’s outskirts to shoot at civilians as a grim form of war tourism. Survivors described how distinctive clothing and weapons set some of the foreigners apart from regular troops. The documentary revived long-standing rumours in Bosnia and among human rights advocates that such “sniper tourism” had taken place, but until now the claims had not produced a major criminal investigation.
Bosnian prosecutors previously examined the matter but shelved their inquiry, with officials citing political sensitivities and the difficulty of gathering evidence in a country that remains deeply divided along ethnic lines decades after the war. Some Serbian authorities have also been quoted as dismissing the allegations as an “urban legend”. Those responses prompted Gavazzeni and his legal supporters to attempt to pursue the case in Italy, where courts can claim jurisdiction over crimes allegedly committed abroad by Italian nationals.
The renewed focus on the claims has prompted political reaction beyond Italy. In the United States, Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna announced that she was launching her own investigation to establish whether any American citizens were among the alleged sniper tourists. In posts on X, she said she was working with the Bosnian consulate and the Italian embassy and pledged that any Americans found to have paid to shoot civilians or children would be prosecuted. Her office has not yet provided further details on the scope of the inquiry or possible legal avenues for bringing cases in US courts.
For survivors of the siege and families of those killed, the Milan investigation represents a potential opportunity to obtain accountability for a particularly shocking dimension of a conflict already marked by ethnic cleansing, mass killings and other crimes that international tribunals have judged to be genocide and crimes against humanity. More than 25 years after the Dayton peace agreement ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, many residents of Sarajevo continue to live with physical and psychological scars from the years in which they were systematically targeted by snipers while going about daily life. Memorials and cemeteries across the city still bear witness to the shelling and gunfire that left thousands dead or wounded.
The Bosnian consul in Milan, Dag Dumrukčić, has publicly welcomed the Italian move and promised full cooperation from Sarajevo, saying his government is eager to establish the truth about any such “human safaris” and, if possible, identify the individuals involved. Reports say Italian investigators are seeking to obtain any surviving Bosnian intelligence files, court records and witness statements that might corroborate the complaint.
While the allegations have not yet been tested in court, legal experts note that the crimes described would fall under ordinary homicide statutes as well as potential war-crimes provisions, given that the victims were civilians in a conflict zone and that the alleged shootings served no military purpose. If Italian nationals are identified and charged, prosecutors could rely on the principle of active personality, which allows states to prosecute their citizens for serious crimes committed abroad. Any foreign nationals implicated would likely fall under the jurisdiction of their own countries, though cooperation between prosecutors could play a role in gathering evidence.
The emerging picture is of a clandestine wartime market in which access to the besieged city’s sniper positions was allegedly sold to paying guests. Witnesses quoted in media reports describe a grim price list in which the right to fire at civilians from the hills had a fixed cost, while shots aimed at children commanded a higher fee. Those accounts suggest that, amid the chaos of the Bosnian conflict, some members of the Bosnian Serb forces saw an opportunity to monetise their control of the high ground around Sarajevo by catering to outsiders seeking lethal thrills.
The investigation remains at an early stage, and many of the details are based on testimony that will have to be corroborated with documents, battlefield records and, potentially, forensic evidence. The siege ended nearly three decades ago, and many of the alleged organisers and participants may have died or become difficult to trace. Nevertheless, Gavazzeni and others involved in the complaint say that even partial identification of those responsible would send an important message about accountability for crimes committed in the shadows of war.
For now, prosecutors in Milan are working through the list of witnesses, while political figures and survivors in Bosnia watch closely to see whether the case will finally force some of the alleged “sniper tourists” out of anonymity. If charges are eventually laid, the proceedings would mark one of the first attempts anywhere to treat such alleged war-zone “human safaris” not as legend or hearsay but as crimes subject to the full weight of national and, potentially, international law.
