Exclusive interviews with a former Bosnian intelligence officer and a leading political analyst reveal why allegations of "sniper tourism"—wealthy foreigners paying to shoot civilians—are resurfacing nearly three decades after the war.
Nearly thirty years after the guns of the Bosnian war fell silent, a set of allegations long whispered through Sarajevo’s wartime memory is forcing its way back into public view. A phenomenon so disturbing that many once dismissed it as traumatised folklore: wealthy foreign nationals allegedly paying Serb forces during the siege to be escorted to sniping positions where they could shoot at civilians—an activity now referred to as the “Sarajevo Safari".
For years, this rumour hovered at the edge of collective remembrance—too horrifying to ignore, too undocumented to prosecute. But two developments have pushed the story into a new phase: a Slovenian documentary, Sarajevo Safari, released in 2022, and an ongoing criminal inquiry in Milan focused specifically on alleged Italian participants.
For many survivors, the idea was too grotesque to contemplate. For others — especially those who lived under siege — the allegations fit disturbingly well within the reality they experienced.
Three decades later, the so-called Sarajevo Safari is no longer just a whispered wartime rumour. Italy has opened an official investigation, Bosnian prosecutors are reviewing evidence, and the phenomenon has re-entered public memory with renewed urgency.
To understand how this alleged system functioned — and why it is emerging publicly only now — Al Mayadeen English spoke with Edin Subašić, a former intelligence officer of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and with Professor Adnan Huskić, one of Bosnia’s leading political analysts and a scholar of EU and Western Balkan affairs.
Their testimonies help reconstruct one of the most chilling chapters of the war. (more...)
A safari on human beings': New testimonies reopen darkest chapter of the siege of Sarajevo
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