More dark details of the ‘human safari’ that allegedly took place during the Bosnian War have emerged, with a man who witnessed wealthy tourists taking turns to shoot at civilians explaining in horrific testimony exactly how the evil acts were carried out.
Speaking on the explosive 2022 Sarajevo Safari documentary, a Slovenian intelligence officer who worked for the US during the war detailed how he witnessed ‘the dark side’ of the conflict, when Serbian snipers took him on a tour of their vantage points around Sarajevo.
From these high up locations, such as high rises and nearby hills, the Serb militants would rain down high calibre fire on the thousands of civilians trapped inside the city during its four-year siege – where at least 13,000 people were killed during the encirclement that lasted from 1992 to 1996, including more than 5,000 civilians.
Alongside these militants, the intelligence officer said he met the rumoured group of ‘tourist shooters’ who he described as not seeming ‘like your average people,’ who had reportedly paid up to $90,000 each to shoot civilians. He also said their hunting ability was ‘remarkable.’
He was then taken to another location on the Serbian side of the siege. “That was the first time I witnessed the Sarajevo Safari up close,” the former operative said.
The anonymous source added: “For certain sums of money, strangers would come in to shoot at the surrounded citizens of Sarajevo.”
During the 1425-day siege of the city, during which civilians were also bombed, shelled, and at point denied access to water, people learned which streets were covered by snipers, often leaving signs to each other to warn them away from the areas.
But for many, passing through these areas was a part of everyday life, with residents learning to ‘pause and change pace when running to confuse the sniper across the street,’ the intelligence officer explained.
While these descriptions of living in a city during the longest siege in modern warfare contain some of the terror experienced by the city’s citizens, the true evil of this ‘human safari’ was still being revealed to the unnamed source.
After seeing how a sniper rifle and binoculars were set out for the tourists, he watched as a wealthy hunter shot a man dead from his vantage point. Excitement filled the air at the prospect of having a go at the human firing range that Sarajevo became, he said.
But then, somehow, the evil practice took an even darker turn. One of the human hunters turned his gun on a child walking down the street, holding his mother’s hand.
It was in that moment that the intelligence officer discovered a stomach-churning part of the Serbs’ business plan – they charged the tourists more to shoot children.
After watching civilians taking it in turns to shoot the people of Sarajevo in cold blood, the Slovenian source was offered the chance to take a shot for free. An offer he refused.
When the war ended, four Serb officials responsible for much of the crimes against humanity committed during the three and a half year conflict were put on trial by an international criminal tribunal.
Among the 90 people sentenced for their role in the widespread atrocities, former president Slobodan Milošević and Bosnian Serb commanders Stanislav Galić, Dragomir Milošević, Radovan Karadžić, and Ratko Mladić were tried and found guilty of war crimes and wider crimes against humanity.
With more information now emerging about the ‘human safari’ of Sarajevo, European prosecutors are now looking into potential criminal charges in relation to the tourists who paid to shoot the city’s captive population, with a case now open in Milan to examine the claims.