Did recreational hunters hunt people during the Bosnian war?

While Sarajevo still bears the scars of the siege, new investigations from Italy are now shaking the self-image of a scene that all too readily portrays itself as the guardian of tradition and nature.

Wild beim Wild editorial team — 14 November 2025

The suspicion that during the 1990s foreign recreational hunters – many from the same milieu as those “killers” who otherwise travel to Africa or Eastern Europe to have themselves photographed in front of animal carcasses – paid money to shoot at civilians is a slap in the face for any society that wants to call itself civilised.

It is the ultimate consequence of a culture that glorifies killing as a leisure activity.

In 1993 and 1994, hundreds of wealthy foreign recreational hunters, who no longer felt like shooting only red deer, roe deer and wild boars, are alleged to have paid 80,000 to 100,000 euros for the opportunity to shoot a human being as well. The recreational hunters are also said to have paid to hunt children.

Because even though there are worlds between war crimes and wildlife hunting, the underlying psychological stance is frighteningly similar: looking through the scope turns everything that lives into an object. Into a target. Into a hit. It is precisely this way of thinking that allows people who otherwise like to talk about game management, tradition and sustainability to suddenly find themselves on a moral plane that is barely distinguishable from an abyss.

As for the organisation, the report suggests that the groups consisted of hunters. It is therefore likely that the organisation of the “safaris” was most probably handled by agencies that usually organised hunting trips to the customary destinations – Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, etc. – to hunt large game such as red deer and wild boars. – Rai News

For years, the recreational hunting community has insisted that its activity has nothing to do with a desire to kill. Yet reality tells a different story. It is no coincidence that precisely those circles in which trophies hang above the fireplace and in which masculinity is thought to prove itself through the recoil of a rifle are now linked to horrific allegations. Anyone who spends their weekend shooting animals for the good feeling of their own superiority should not be surprised when the question eventually arises of how far this devaluation of life extends.

The investigations from Milan suggest that some were apparently willing to go one step further: from wild animal to human being. And even if only a fraction of the allegations prove true, it already shows what dangerous fantasies are simmering in parts of the scene. A culture that romanticises killing need not be surprised if some of its followers eventually lose their moral compass entirely.

These are passionate hunters who hoped for an extra adrenaline rush from a human trophy. – Edlin Subašić, former agent of the Bosnian intelligence service

What may have happened in Sarajevo is no random lapse by a fringe group. It is the final stage of a mindset that measures, evaluates and ranks life, and derives from this the right to decide over death and survival. This exact flaw in reasoning has run through recreational hunting for decades. People convince themselves that they are acting in the interest of nature, while in truth they turn nature into a stage for their own need for validation.

The siege of Sarajevo was a war crime. But the current debate shows that when a society turns killing into a legitimate leisure pursuit, it only takes the right context for the unthinkable to become possible. And that is the sharpest warning to all those who continue to glorify recreational hunting as a harmless pastime: whoever turns life into a target eventually loses the ability to respect life, whether it has four legs or two.

Further articles

More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier The Role and Criticism of Recreational Hunters we shed light on the training, power and self-image of recreational hunters. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.

The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.

Wild beim Wild editorial team

All articles are written by IG Wild beim Wild as well as by external co-authors. Research, structuring and editorial processes may be supported by AI-assisted tools.