The siege lasted nearly 4 years in the capital of Sarajevo (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
For years, disturbing reports of the so-called ‘Sarajevo safari’ have rippled under the surface, when wealthy foreigners allegedly paid thousands to kill civilians for bloodsport during the deadly siege of Sarajevo.
Rich visitors from Britain, Italy, Germany, Russia and the US allegedly paid up to £88,000 to use Bosnian Serb sniper positions high above the besieged city to kill people for entertainment, paying extra to target children or pregnant women.
By night, they reportedly gorged on roast pork and lamb, necking back whisky and brandy as they celebrated their killings. A former volunteer with a Bosnian Serb tank unit, Aleksandar Licanin, said he witnessed the foreign shooters firsthand.
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Memorial for Civilian Casualties During Siege of Sarajevo (Image: Getty)
« All of the snipers were just pure sadists, » he said.
After each day’s killing, Licanin said the rich foreigners would head to cafes to feast.
« We would leave: we didn’t want contact with them, » he told The Times. « They were celebrating killing people. I can’t imagine how you can live with killing a child. »
It allegedly happened during the siege of Sarajevo, which lasted nearly four years from April 1992 to February 1996, making it the longest blockade of a capital city in modern warfare. More than 10,000 people were killed during the bloody 1,425 days.
After Italian authorities began investigating claims that Italian hunters were among those involved in foreign killing holidays, Licanin said he felt able to come forward.
He said his involvement in the war began in 1993, when his Bosnian Serb community split from the Muslim Bosniaks as ethnic and religious tensions increased. He moved to the Serb-controlled area of Sarajevo, where he joined a Bosnian Serb tank unit.
He said his unit shared a vantage point high above the city with a 200-strong Serb militia, run by former postal worker Slavko Aleksic.
« They were shooting at women, children and the elderly. They were out of control and Aleksic was obviously a psychopath, you could see it in his eyes. »
While Licanin said his unit received formal targeting coordinates, he alleged that Aleksic’s snipers chose their own victims.
The visitors reportedly paid money to get better vantage spots in tall buildings, while Croatian investigative journalist Domagoj Margetic claimed he was told the sick shooters would « pay more to shoot children and pregnant women ».
Margetic said he was told by militia contacts that shooters came from Russia, Romania, Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, the US, Canada and the UK.
The claim that women were among the bloodsport tourists was backed up by Zlatko Miletic, the then chief of police in Sarajevo, who ran an anti-sniper team.
« I remember a woman from Romania who must have killed more than ten people, » he told Balkan news channel N1 this month.
« Those foreign snipers were deeply dug into concrete trenches and it was difficult to neutralise them, » claimed Miletic, who is now a member of parliament in Bosnia.
« They killed dozens of children and women, » he said, adding: « We had information that [the Aleksic militia] was hosting these people for money and that most of them came from Italy. »
Claims of the foreign killings have been strongly denied. Aleksic died in December, but just before his death, he denied hosting foreign snipers.
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