Published 09:41 07 May 2026 GMT
Twisted tourists who travelled to the Bosnian capital during the Siege of Sarajevo (1992-1996) with a mission to kill innocent civilians for a price reportedly competed to see who could kill the most beautiful women.
A new book has claimed that wealthy aspiring murderers paid staggering prices to gun down young females: the more attractive, the more expensive.
According to Croatian journalist Domagoj Margetic’s new book “Pay and Shoot” Serbian handlers were paid around 80,000 Deutsche marks between 1992 and 1996, about $53,000 at the time, by sick tourists to kill middle-aged women as part of a “human safari” trip.
Shooting young, attractive women was priced at 95,000 marks, and, even more sickeningly, the price to shoot pregnant women rose to 110,000 marks, or $72,000.
Margetic told The Times that the book was written using documents shared by Bosnian intelligence officer Nedzad Ugljen, who was killed in 1996.
The author told the newspaper, “Ugljen also wrote the foreigners competed to see who could shoot the most beautiful women.”
After speaking with members of the Bosnian-Serb militia, Uglijen claimed that a European royal was among the gun-wielding tourists.
Allegedly, Uglijen said, “Many of them told me a European royal was among the shooters. He would arrive by helicopter, stay in Vogosca near Sarajevo, and wanted to shoot at children.”
Although tourists paid Serbian handlers the cash to kill, the “human safari” actually began in Croatia and was reportedly organized by Zvonko Horvatincic, a member of the Yugoslav intelligence forces in Croatia before the wars in the 1990s.
According to Margetic, it was not a back-street secret scheme but “an activity handled by the security services because foreigners were involved.”
During the Siege of Sarajevo, 1992 to 1996, more than 10,000 people were killed by snipers and shelling in the city.
After investigative journalist Ezio Gavazzeni alleged “There were Germans, French, English … people from all Western countries who paid large sums of money to be taken there to shoot civilians,” last year, a court case was opened in Italy.
Prosecutors investigated claims that tourists paid upwards of $90,000 to shoot civilians on human safari trips, and a probe was launched to identify Italians involved in murder tourism.
An 80-year-old former truck driver was investigated and tried for several counts of premeditated murder as part of the probe into sniper tourism, but it has not been confirmed if he is directly responsible for any of the killings.
