Introduction
The fall of communism at the beginning of the 1990s destabilised Yugoslavia and unleashed the possibility for its republics to pursue independence. This shift intensified ethnic nationalism in the region and increased tensions among different communities, such as Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats, who sought to achieve independence. During the previous decades, the government of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had suppressed the nationalist sentiments of these ethnic and religious groups. Therefore, when the Republic disintegrated, nationalism experienced a renewed resurgence, becoming one of the key driving forces behind the political fragmentation of the country (Pavković, 1997).
Croatia and Slovenia declared independence in 1991, triggering the disintegration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Bosnia-Herzegovina followed soon after, proclaiming its own independence in 1992. The European Community recognised it as an independent state on April 4th, 1992, and the following day, thousands of people walked down the streets of Sarajevo in peaceful spontaneous marches, toward the Parliament and other buildings seized by Serb forces after the declaration (United Nations, 1994). Events escalated quickly. Within days, Bosnian Serbs units had encircled the city and initiated unceasing bombardment from the surrounding hills, causing immense physical damage to the city and its citizens.
Serb political actors within certain nationalist circles sought to create a state in which all Serbs could live together. While not supported by all Serbian leaders, this vision was taken up and politically instrumentalised by Slobodan Milošević and parts of the Serbian leadership. Within this context, Serbian authorities promoted the idea of a “Greater Serbia”, a project rooted in 19th-century Serbian nationalist thought and later revived in the interwar period and again after Tito’s death (D. K. Druško, 2023). According to judicial documentation from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ([ICTY] Tadić, 1997; Brđanin, 2004; Krajišnik, 2006; Karadžić, 2016), the project involved expanding territories controlled by Serbia into parts of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina with significant Serb populations. Statements collected by the Tribunal in The Hague show that leaders such as Radoslav Brđanin advanced a three-phase plan to expel the non-Serb population in areas under his local authority: creating impossible living conditions, forcing their departure, and, finally, eliminating those who remained (D. K. Druško, 2023). This territorial ambition contributed directly to the outbreak of the war.
This article draws primarily on publicly available judicial records, press investigations, testimony cited in ICTY judgments, and interviews reported by major European media. As many of the allegations concerning “human safaris” remain unverified, disputed, or under investigation, this text does not claim to establish definitive facts. Instead, it examines how these claims have emerged, the extent to which they appear in official documentation and the institutional responses to them. Where evidence is uncertain or contested, this is explicitly indicated.
The Hidden Crime of the War: Human Safaris in Sarajevo
The war took place between 1992 and 1995. During this time, a siege was carried out by the Serbian forces in Sarajevo for a total of 1,425 days, making it the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. According to the ICTY findings, judicial testimonies describe clandestine meetings organised in 1991 to militarily prepare the Serbian population and coordinate the supply of arms from various areas of Bosnia and Serbia (D. K. Druško, 2023). The city was encircled by approximately 13,000 troops, organised into eight brigades directly surrounding Sarajevo (United Nations, 1994).
In March 1992, General Milutin Kukanjac declared that the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) had distributed at least 17,298 weapons to “volunteer units” and that more than 69,000 Serbs had been armed with the assistance of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) before the outbreak of open war (ICTY, 2006).
This siege, lifted after the Dayton Agreement on December 14th, 1995, enabled multiple crimes against International Humanitarian Law to be committed in the area. Among them, one has drawn particular attention in the past months. Ezio Gavazzeni, an Italian writer, filed a complaint regarding the human safaris –a disturbing reference to expeditions traditionally aimed at hunting or observing wild animals– allegedly carried out in the streets of Bosnia during the siege. He claims that people with economic resources paid thousands for weekend trips to kill civilians. These trips took place, according to the ICTY, in order to “terrorise the civilian population”. “There were Germans, French, English… people from all western countries who paid large sums of money to be taken there to shoot civilians”, Gavazzeni claimed (Tori, 2025). The complaint also refers to information about an alleged “price list”: “children cost more, then men, preferably if wearing uniforms and armed, women, and finally the elderly, who could be killed for free”.
On November 10th, 2025, the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office officially opened the investigation for aggravated intentional homicide against an as-yet-undetermined number of individuals who, between 1992 to 1996, allegedly paid large sums of money to participate in these so-called human safaris in Sarajevo during the siege (Castrillo, 2025). To understand how such operations could have taken place, it is essential to examine what intelligence services knew at the time and how they responded.
Intelligence Reports and Lost Documentation
Apparently, this case had already been examined by Italian intelligence in 1992. According to former members of the Bosnian intelligence services, they informed the Italian military secret service (SISMI), now known as the Internal Information and Security Agency (AISI), about the presence of foreign nationals shooting at civilians from the hills around Sarajevo. As they later told Gavazzeni, SISMI replied months afterwards, stating that the practice had been halted after identifying Trieste as the point of departure for these trips (Castrillo, 2025). In his complaint, Gavazzeni explains that:
Bosnian intelligence alerted the local headquarters of SISMI at the end of 1993 regarding the presence of at least five Italian nationals in the hills surrounding the city, with the intention of shooting civilians.
The officers added that they never obtained the names of either the hunters or their organisers and that a SISMI document should exist confirming that, in early 1994, Italian authorities in Trieste located and dismantled the departure point for these alleged safaris. However, they received no further details and did not know whether anyone had been arrested.
In recent years, the Bosnian authorities announced that they were reviewing the case and that an official investigation might potentially be opened, as there appeared to be sufficient grounds to examine possible crimes committed by foreigners during the siege. However, no formal investigation has been formally opened, although the Bosnian consul in Milan, Dag Dumrukčić, publicly expressed his government’s “full cooperation” with Italian authorities. As for the Serbian judiciary, it dismissed the allegations, assuring that, for their courts, the matter is merely “an urban legend” (Domínguez, 2025a).
From a legal standpoint, the Milan Prosecutor’s Office would hold jurisdiction only over potential Italian nationals involved in the alleged shootings, whereas crimes committed on Bosnian territory during the siege fall under the jurisdiction of Bosnian courts or, where applicable, universal jurisdiction provisions. Depending on the evidence, possible charges could include intentional homicide, war crimes against civilians or participation in a joint criminal enterprise, although the statute of limitations differs across jurisdictions. Cooperation between Italian and Bosnian authorities remains essential for evidentiary exchange, yet no formal joint investigation has been announced to date.
In addition, the limited institutional follow-up raises important questions about accountability. Bosnian prosecutors cited evidentiary gaps and the absence of verifiable documentation as obstacles to opening a full investigation. Serbian judicial authorities dismissed the allegations outright, which effectively prevented any domestic inquiry. Italy, despite early intelligence alerts, did not pursue formal prosecutions in the 1990s, and it remains unclear what archival material was produced or preserved by SISMI. The lack of coordinated procedures between the three states has further obstructed clarification of these events.
Testimonies and Recent Sources
The story of these weekend snipers in Sarajevo was first reported in the book “The bastards of Sarajevo”, published in 2014 by an Italian journalist and author Luca Leone. Later, in 2022, a documentary was aired, “Sarajevo Safari”, and became central to the allegations. According to Gavazzeni, the director, Miran Zupactiĉ, “gave us the passwords to access the private screening of the film (…) which I could provide to the judge.” This film includes an anonymous witness, and “some sources speak of Americans, Canadians and Russians, but also Italians, who were willing to pay to play war”.
Recent reporting has brought additional testimonies and accusations linked to the so-called human safaris in Sarajevo. A Croatian journalist joined the investigation opened by the Milan Prosecutor’s Office, filing a complaint that accuses the current Serbian President, Aleksandar Vučić, of having participated in shootings against civilians during the siege of Sarajevo (Castrillo, 2025). Additionally, Michael Giffoni, who served as the deputy head of the Italian diplomatic mission in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War and later became Italy’s first ambassador to Kosovo, confirmed in an interview that such practices occurred, and stated that Italian intelligence services investigated and disrupted at least one of these operations during the conflict (Domínguez, 2025b).
Further claims have surfaced in international media. The German newspaper BILD published a major investigative report alleging that President Vučić may have taken part in these human safaris during the war. The report, titled “Turmoil over the Serbian President and Alleged Human Safaris”, includes testimonies and material suggesting possible involvement (Langner, 2025). Although these allegations remain unproven, they contribute to mounting public pressure calling for a comprehensive and transparent investigation.
Conclusion
The existence of organised human safaris remains contested, and much of the available information is based on allegations that have never been fully examined in a judicial process. For more than thirty years, however, versions of these events have resurfaced through witness testimonies, intelligence reports, diplomatic accounts and journalistic investigations, suggesting that the issue has remained present in the memory and narratives of those who lived through the siege. While no court has issued a definitive ruling confirming or disproving the practice, the consistency with which similar accounts have emerged indicates that the allegations cannot be dismissed outright. What is clear is that the wartime context of Sarajevo, marked by systematic sniper attacks on civilians, created the conditions in which such abuses could occur. This article therefore distinguishes between judicial findings and unproven claims, underscoring the urgent need for transparent access to archives, coordinated institutional cooperation and an independent investigation to clarify what happened. Only then can accountability and historical truth be meaningfully pursued.
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