Sniper Alley Zone

From warfare to safaris

One event that always stayed with me from the Yugo wars is getting to look through a sniper telescope. One day I walked past a bunch of soldiers who were setting up in a bunker and they called me over. I’d never seen any of them before. Total strangers in what was a pretty small town. I hesitated for a split second but walked over out of fear. Every part of my body tightened, everything felt like it was going inwards. ‘I’m gonna die today’ I remember thinking. Turns out they were super excited about having a sniper rifle and were keen for me to check it out as well. I could see people’s balconies, windows and rooftops, all the buildings were familiar. You realise these are probably people you know, you went to primary school with their kids a year ago. Now anyone could be an enemy, some people wouldn’t talk to you anymore. A complete state of paranoia. I made some excuse about having to get something for mum and they let me go laughing.

The capital city Sarajevo had a notorious stretch of town called sniper alley. It was surrounded by high-rise buildings, any of which could be targeting pedestrians. A lot of urban centres had these lines of fire, towers overlooking city squares or boulevards. You literally took your life in your hands just to go out and get milk. There were stories about homeless children being used for target practice. I was reminded of all this after hearing about recent ‘sniper safaris’ investigations in Italy. Sounds like a plot from an exploitation movie but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was true.

‘In November 2025, the public prosecutor’s office in Milan opened an investigation into claims that Italian citizens had paid for “sniper safaris” and where large sums of money had been paid by wealthy individuals with a “passion for weapons” in order to shoot and kill civilians from Serb positions. According to la Repubblica, the “sniper tourists”, usually wealthy tourists, paid about €100,000, or $116,000 adjusted for current inflation rates, to join trips to Sarajevo.’