Human safaris in Sarajevo and the machine gun of sensationalism

For about three years now, the media has been reporting on a macabre practice: Italian tourists allegedly went to Sarajevo during the Balkan War to, after paying several tens of thousands of euros, take the place of a sniper and shoot at humans to satisfy their sadistic spirit. The story sells itself, but it is worth noting that the thread holding it up is very thin: a documentary and a book that rely mostly on weak and indirect testimonies: “I heard that.” Since the Milan Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation, it is justifiable for the press to report on it. But among the dozens of headlines on the matter, there are responsible ones – which limit themselves to recording the accusation of the Italian journalist and writer or the opening of proceedings – and others that play into the most irresponsible sensationalism. “Inside the human safaris of Sarajevo: «Children and women were the most prized pieces, the shooters’ mouths were watering»” (El Mundo) or “Children hunted like deer for 15,000 euros. The investigation looking into the human safaris of Sarajevo” (El Español). No one was able to prove this rumor that was already circulating in the 90s, even though there were hundreds of journalists on the ground at the time. (There were also those who paid for militiamen to shoot into thin air when their reports went live, but that is another story.) In this case, without photographs, evidence, confessions, or suspects, more prudence would be required than what has been preached by some headlines that want to play in the league of prestige.

This summer, by the way, I read the book The Trophy, by the Belgian writer Gaea Schoeters, where a human hunt is proposed. She speaks of it from the freedom of the novel, but the moral questioning of the system contains more truth than these yellow-tinged news items. And what prose, my goodness.