(JEWISH VOICE NEWS) Italian prosecutors have launched a sweeping investigation into shocking allegations that wealthy foreigners paid tens of thousands of dollars to shoot civilians — including children — during the Siege of Sarajevo, in what investigators are calling “sniper tourism” or “human safaris.” The disturbing claims, reported by Metro.co.uk, the New York Post, and the BBC, bear an unsettling resemblance to the torture-for-profit premise of Eli Roth’s 2005 horror film Hostel — except these alleged atrocities happened in the real world, amid one of the Bosnian War’s bloodiest massacres.

The inquiry is being led by Italian journalist Ezio Gavazzeni, who is seeking to identify Italians who allegedly traveled from Trieste to Bosnia between 1992 and 1995 specifically to murder unarmed civilians from sniper positions overlooking Sarajevo.

“We are talking about wealthy people, with reputations — businessmen — who during the siege of Sarajevo paid to kill unarmed civilians,” Gavazzeni told Metro.co.uk.

He said participants would leave Italy on what amounted to man-hunting expeditions, then return to their seemingly respectable daily lives as if nothing had happened.

Gavazzeni first heard whispers of such killings in the 1990s, but his interest deepened after a 2022 documentary — highlighted by the New York Post — in which a Serbian soldier described foreigners shooting at civilians in Sarajevo for sport. According to the journalist, these alleged “tourists” came from across Europe and beyond, with higher fees charged for shooting children.

During the 1,425-day siege — the longest siege of any capital city in modern warfare — Bosnian Serb forces killed roughly 10,000 civilians.

“There were Germans, French, English … people from all Western countries who paid large sums of money to be taken there to shoot civilians,” Gavazzeni said. “There were no political or religious motivations. They went for fun and personal satisfaction.”

Metro reports that as many as 100 individuals could be called to testify, and prosecutors have already identified several Italians. The investigation also relies on intelligence described by the BBC, which reported that a Bosnian officer said his colleagues uncovered evidence of these “safaris” in late 1993 and passed it to Italy’s SISMI military intelligence in early 1994.

Across the Atlantic, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, announced Thursday that she is opening a U.S. investigation into whether any Americans participated.

“Paying money to shoot civilians — and even worse, to shoot children — is a level of evil our country cannot and will not tolerate,” Luna said. She added that both the Italian and Bosnian governments would share any information regarding possible American involvement. “If there are any Americans who have engaged in this, they deserve to be charged and prosecuted.”

The allegations evoke the premise of Eli Roth’s Hostel — where wealthy thrill-seekers pay to torture and kill kidnapped tourists. But unlike Roth’s fictional nightmare, what Gavazzeni describes is no cinematic shock piece. If proven true, these were real civilians trapped in a real war, targeted not by movie villains but by affluent outsiders treating mass suffering as a macabre pastime.