'Sniper safaris': How dehumanisation enables atrocities, from Sarajevo to Gaza

Reports out of Milan, where prosecutors are investigating allegations that rich tourists paid to kill civilians for sport in Sarajevo’s infamous “Sniper Alley” during the Bosnian War in the 1990s, are shocking only to foreigners.

The allegations now emerging are as grotesque as they are painfully familiar to Bosnians: access arranged through intermediaries, payments set by target, children costing more to kill. 

This story was reported and documented by local and regional media as far back as 1995, and more recently in Bosnian writer Haris Imamovic’s book Vedran and the Firemen and Miran Zupanic’s 2022 documentary Sarajevo Safari. 

What is deeply disturbing to a Bosnian like myself is not just the horror of these reports, but the conditions that made such violence possible. 

Read more: 'Sniper safaris': How dehumanisation enables atrocities, from Sarajevo to Gaza