Could there be an aspect of the Bosnian War, which ended 27 years ago, that has not yet come to light? Slovenian filmmaker Miran Zupanic tries to answer that question with a documentary that is shocking from the title. ‘Sarajevo safari’ tackles the rumor continues to circulate in parts of the former Yugoslavia. foreign millionaires paid a lot of money During the siege of the Bosnian capital be a sniper for a day and shoot civilians from the window of a building.
Was there this spooky tourism? The documentary does not substantiate this with evidence, but provides tips In this sense. Two testimonies in particular: one of the main narrators of the ‘Sarajevo safari’, a shadowy character whose features are hidden throughout his images. He explains that after receiving some military training in his youth—when Yugoslavia was still a single country—a US secret agency contacted him when the war had already begun. Such success claims he left by helicopter from Belgrade to Pale with a group of men in Republika Srpska – the pro-Serb split from Bosnia – to Sarajevo. Not all were Serbian soldiers; there were also “foreigners who shot besieged residents for a certain amount of money”. from the city. Between 1992 and 1994, he entered and exited Sarajevo 35 times.
Protected by anonymity, this interviewer’s revelations are the most shocking in the movie. For example, he explains that “safari” has been working since the beginning of the war; paying foreigners spent little time in Sarajevo (“they were already shooting at their homes”); and he said he saw a total of seven people fall, hit by the bullets of these amateur snipers: “I’ve even seen children whose mothers die holding hands. They were like hunters shooting animals. I was horrified to see this.”
Westerners and Russians
There are names and surnames of the second direct witness to the events. This is Edin Subasic, who worked for the intelligence of the Bosnian army during the war years. In the documentary, he reassures them when information reaches them that Western and Russian millionaires have paid a fortune to shoot as snipers. “human safari”They started researching this. It confirms that some of those who came to carry out this infamous activity have discovered that they are doing it. since Italy, so they contacted the intelligence services of that country to gather more information. “Three or four months later, I spoke to Mustafa. [Hajrulahović, un alto mando militar bosnio durante la guerra] what was the situation? Italian intelligence told us they had found the exit point, it was neutralized and it won’t happen again,” says Subasic.
The documentary deals not only with the need to provide evidence to prove the facts, but also from the human side. The gruesome testimony of the parents of a one-year-old girl who was shot and killed by a sniper in October 1993 is part of the tape. In fact, one of the participants in the ‘Sarajevo safari’ said that foreigners they were charged more if the victim was a child. Another interviewee remained in a wheelchair after being shot in the back.
Sarajevo safari received great acclaim at the Al Jazeera Balkans documentary festival held in Sarajevo in September. Zupanic later clarified that his aim was also to work from a moral point of view, as is evident during the film. what kind of person can join this manhunt without regret?. “Life is very complex. History is very complex. This may be a drop in the ocean of history. This little story is precisely important because it reveals a whole new level of human evil,” he told AA news agency about the documentary director. . Producer Slovenian Arsmedia is looking for a distributor so that the film can be shown commercially in 2023.
The siege of Sarajevo, the longest siege in recent history, lasted about four years, during which about 6,000 civilians were killed. Zupanic’s documentary, whose revelations have questioned Serbian media, explains how some may fall for wealthy citizens of other countries to get a dose of eerie adrenaline.