‘European royal’ allegedly took part in ‘human safaris’ and ‘wanted to shoot at children’
Topics: World News, Politics
Madison Burgess
Featured Image Credit: David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
Topics: World News, Politics
It’s been alleged that a European royal was among the wealthy tourists who paid money to shoot civilians during the Bosnian war in the 1990s.
More than 11,000 people died during the brutal, almost four-year siege of Sarajevo between 1992 to 1996.
The Bosnian capital was subjected to daily shelling and sniper attacks from Serb nationalist forces after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia.
However, a 2022 documentary and several reports from journalists following the conflict have alleged that there was something equally sinister going on at the same time.
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There are claims that rich tourists would travel to Sarajevo in the 1990s to take part in a disturbing ‘human safari,’ where they’d pay money to members of the Bosnian Serb army to be able to shoot at civilians - allegedly paying more to target pregnant women and children.
Italian journalist and novelist Ezio Gavazzeni gathered information on the shocking claims and handed it over to the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office last year, which opened an investigation.
Since then, others have looked into the horrifying claims and come forward with information, including Croatian journalist Domagoj Margetic, who published the book, Pay and Shoot.
In it, he cites documents handed over by Nedzad Ugljen, a Bosnian intelligence officer who was investigating the ‘sniper safaris’ before he was killed in 1996.
Allegedly, sniper tourists would pay 80,000 marks (£35,000) to shoot someone who was middle-aged, 95,000 marks (£42,000) to shoot a young woman, and 110,000 marks (£49,000) to shoot a pregnant woman.
It was also reportedly more expensive to target children
Margetic told The Times: “Ugljen also wrote the foreigners competed to see who could shoot the most beautiful women.”
He also made the shocking claim that a European royal was among those travelling over to be part of the horrific practice - and he ‘wanted to shoot at children’.
Margetic told the publication that he interviewed members of the Bosnian-Serb militia, who hosted the foreign snipers.
He alleged: “Many of them told me a European royal was among the shooters. He would arrive by helicopter, stay in Vogosca near Sarajevo, and wanted to shoot at children.”
No more information was provided on the identity of the ‘European royal’.
Aleksandar Licanin, 63, a former volunteer with a Bosnian Serb tank unit, also spoke to The Times, claiming that the sniper tourist group included Britons, Italians, and Germans.
He told the publication, “I want the truth to come out and I was waiting for a real investigation to start. I am prepared to stand up and tell the Italian magistrates what I know.”
Licanin claims he first saw well-dressed foreigners taking up positions with snipers around 1993 or 1994.
He said: “They wore expensive leather jackets, and I was told they were Italians, Germans and British. They were helped to find targets, and shooting from the cemetery was a clear shot - you had everything.”
Al Jazeera reported that in February, an 80-year-old former truck driver was put under investigation as part of the probe.
As per Reuters, he faces charges of several counts of premeditated murder, according to sources who spoke to the agency; but, no further details or updates have been issued.
The Siege of Sarajevo begins. For almost four years, the 400,000 inhabitants of the city suffer from shelling and snipers, with many cut off from food, water, medicine and electricity.
Bosnian military intelligence officer Edin Subasic comes across testimony from a Serbian volunteer. He later tells El País the man spoke about seeing ‘five Italians who had hunting equipment and expensive weapons’ who described themselves as ‘hunters who paid Serbs in Sarajevo to shoot people in the city’.
The Siege of Sarajevo ends.
Former US Marine John Jordan testifies to the International Criminal Court about ‘tourist shooters’. He said: “I never saw one of these tourist shooters take a shot. I just saw them being handled and moved around known sniper positions.
"It was clearly obvious that the person being led by men who were familiar with the ground was completely unfamiliar with the ground, and his manner of dress and the weapons they carried led me to believe they were tourist shooters.”
Luca Leone writes in his book The B***ards of Sarajevo of European tourists paying at checkpoints managed by Serbian paramilitaries in Croatia and Bosnia to shoot civilians in Sarajevo.
The documentary Sarajevo Safari by Slovenian director Miran Zupanic further drags the murky details of the alleged human safaris into the public eye.
The film includes testimony from Subasic and an unnamed Slovenian source who worked for ‘an important American agency’. The latter claims in the film to have seen ‘how, for certain sums of money, strangers would come in to shoot at the surrounded citizens of Sarajevo’.
The public prosecutor's office in Milan opens an investigation into claims Italian citizens were involved in the ‘human safaris’, after journalist and author Ezio Gavazzeni filed a legal complaint.
Meanwhile, US congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna says she has opened her own investigation and vows: “If there are any Americans who have engaged in this, they deserve to be charged and prosecuted.”
An 80-year-old Italian truck driver allegedly becomes the first suspect investigated over the ‘human safaris’.