A woman has claimed that some of the rich ‘sniper tourists’ who allegedly paid large sums to travel to war-torn Sarajevo killed her six-year-old son.
Shocking claims resurfaced, with Italian journalist Ezio Gavazzeni suggesting that affluent tourists would pay sums of up to €100,000 (£88,000) in today’s money to shoot and kill civilians in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the early 1990s.
More than 11,000 people died during a four-year siege on Sarajevo, which saw Yugoslavia torn apart as Serbian forces surrounded the capital city, but it now appears as if some of those deaths can be attributed to rich foreigners who travelled to the country with the sole intention of taking the lives of innocent people.
The public prosecutor’s office in Milan has since opened an investigation into the claims, which also reportedly saw the sick ‘sniper tourists’ pay extra to shoot at children, in scenes similar to those in twisted TV series or films such as Squid Game or The Hunger Games.
Over 5,000 civilians died in the conflict (Derek Hudson/Getty Images)
During the war, ‘sniper alley’ became one of the bloodiest locations, as it saw Serbian snipers shoot down at the street from above, and Gavazzeni has suggested that they were not alone, as he says many Italians, Germans, French and English nationals paid eye-watering sums to commit murder.
“People from all western countries who paid large sums of money to be taken there to shoot civilians,” Gavazzeni said of the case.
“There were no political or religious motivations. They were rich people who went there for fun and personal satisfaction. We are talking about people who love guns who perhaps go to shooting ranges or on safari in Africa.”
Local Fatima Popovac has been grieving the loss of her six-year-old son Adnan for over 30 years now and after the allegations first surfaced, she has come out and claimed that the sniper tourists were responsible for her child’s death.
She said: “I cannot understand how someone could kill a child for amusement. What harm could a 6-year-old child possibly have done to anyone?
Sniper alley was one of the bloodiest areas in the siege (Derek Hudson/Getty Images)
“I cannot even imagine that those who carried these out could be in human form. I wish I could see that monster—what they look like, what they resemble. Do they carry no humanity at all?”
Dzemil Hodzic, founded an organisation which looks into crimes committed during the siege, after he lost his 16-year-old brother.
He added: “As long as I live, I will fight for the truth. And I won’t stop. They won’t sleep comfortably.”
A former US marine who volunteered during the Bosnian War has also testified that he witnessed some sniper tourists present in Sarajevo.
He said: “I had witnessed on more than one occasion personnel who did not appear to me to be locals by their dress, by the weapons they carried, by the way they were being handled, i.e., guided around by the locals.”
