Italy probes if ‘war tourists’ paid to shoot civilians in Sarajevo siege

The Bosnian capital of Sarajevo is covered by layers of fog, Bosnia, Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Eldar Emric)

Prosecutors in Italy are investigating possible Italian snipers who may have paid the Bosnian Serb army during the 1990s siege of Sarajevo to be allowed to shoot civilians for sport, local media reported.

According to La Repubblica daily, the investigation opened by Milan prosecutor Alessandro Gobbis for voluntary manslaughter seeks to identify Italians who between 1993 and 1995 may have “paid to play war and kill defenceless civilians ‘for fun.’”

The newspaper said the unidentified suspects it dubbed “war tourists” were mostly wealthy and gun-loving right-wing sympathisers, who departed from Trieste, in northern Italy, before being taken to the hills surrounding Sarajevo.

There, the would-be snipers paid up to the equivalent of 100,000 euros (C$162,877) per day to the Bosnian Serb forces to shoot at civilians below them, according to the daily Il Giornale, the first newspaper to report, in July, that an investigation in Italy had been opened.

The investigation follows a complaint filed by Italian journalist and writer Ezio Gavanezzi, who was contacted in August 2025 by the former mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karic.

She had filed her own complaint in Bosnia in 2022 after the broadcast of the documentary “Sarajevo Safari” by Slovenian director Miran Zupanic, which revealed the crimes.

In an interview with La Repubblica, Gavanezzi estimated there were at least 100 Italians who participated, with Il Giornale citing at least double that -- on top of foreigners from other countries.

On social media Tuesday, Karic said she welcomed the Italian investigation.

In her 2022 complaint, a copy of which she posted on social media, Karic said the documentary, along with witness statements, point to “reasonable suspicion” that members of the Bosnian Serb army “organized ‘excursions’ for wealthy foreigners”.

They “had the opportunity to fire precision rifles from (army) positions above the city of Sarajevo, killing and wounding innocent civilians in the besieged city, including children,” according to her complaint.

During the nearly four-year siege of Sarajevo that began in April 1992 -- the longest in the history of modern warfare -- some 11,541 men, women, and children were killed and more than 50,000 people wounded by Bosnian Serb forces, according to official figures.