Weekend warriors paid to hunt civilians while calling it sport
We always knew the siege of Sarajevo was hell. We did not know there might have been rich a**hats flying in for the weekend to treat it like a hunting trip. Italian investigators are now digging into claims that gun tourists paid tens of thousands to sit in the hills and pick off civilians for fun.
An investigation has been launched into claims that gun enthusiasts and far-Right extremists travelled to the war-torn city in the 1990s with sniper rifles to pick off terrified Bosnians “for fun”.
The foreigners, from Italy, the US, Russia and elsewhere, are accused of paying Serbian forces to take part in the shooting spree during the Bosnian War.
They were allegedly motivated by sympathy for the Serbian cause, sheer bloodthirstiness or a combination of the two, investigators say.
Serbia has denied the claims.
But witnesses and Italian investigators claim there was even a price list for the targeted killings – foreigners would pay more to shoot children and men who were armed and in uniform.
The amateur snipers paid the modern-day equivalent of €80,000 to €100,000 (median £80,000) to take part in the chilling “sport”, according to La Repubblica newspaper.
Witnesses have described a literal price list for human targets, with children and men in uniform at the top and seniors tossed in as the budget option. The accused snipers went home to regular lives in Trieste and beyond, their war stories tucked neatly behind a suit and a smile, while their victims stayed in mass graves and memory. This is beyond disgusting.
via Crooks and Liars