Curled up in her mother’s arms outside their family home, a sniper bullet struck Irina that day. She died in hospital hours later, her small body too fragile to recover from the trauma of the strike.
Irina was one of 11,541 victims, 1,601 of them children, who were killed between 1992 and 1996 during the Bosnian Serb siege of the majority-Muslim city, where forces committed war crimes by purposefully sniping civilian targets.
However, the indiscriminate bloodshed may not have been perpetrated solely by the Bosnian Serb militias, but also by ordinary civilians eager for a thrill.
Wealthy foreigners wanted in on the action – and paid handsomely to live-out their fantasies by travelling to Sarajevo on the weekends to partake in a ‘human safari’, according to claims being investigated by Italian authorities.
In chilling detail, the case alleges that war tourists from Italy, Canada, Russia and the U.S. spent between £70,000 – £88,000 to take part in the ‘manhunt’, even paying extra to kill minors.
While the Italian investigation is new, the rumour of foreigners engaging in bloody murder in Sarajevo has been festering for more than a decade – and now the truth may finally be uncovered.
Hellbound and Down 