The atrocious humanity

The Milan Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation to verify whether it is true that Italian citizens and other nationalities paid to murder civilians for pleasure during the Bosnian War. This macabre tourism, which has been aptly defined as "human safaris", It consisted of paying a sum of money that could range from 80,000 to 100,000 euros to travel to besieged Sarajevo in 1992 on a trip organized specifically for the purpose of killing people. The price varied depending on the murder. The most expensive targets were children. The most defenseless. The most innocent. The "safari" also included, in addition to any type of adult, pregnant women. Another prized target. This savage practice was denounced in a 2022 documentary by the Slovenian Miran Zupanic, titled Sarajevo Safari. Now, based on statements from a former Bosnian army general and former intelligence agent who spoke with an Italian journalist, the prosecution has been tasked with clarifying whether these events are true and condemning the guilty parties for crimes that, in principle, have not yet expired.

This is the kind of news you wouldn't want to read even in a work of fiction, but it's also the kind you think could be so true it surpasses any fiction. It doesn't surprise us. Unfortunately. Homo homini lupus este. But it troubles us. Especially when these are acts that could have been committed by hundreds of people. Not two or three sadistic rich men with the perfect opportunity to kill at will and satisfy their ravenous god-like desires. Hundreds of people, an entire network willing to organize these trips, to provide weapons and gunfire in exchange for money, to make the terrible expression "everything has a price" literal. This is the most disturbing part. That money continues to open the doors to any atrocity and that evil finds so many hands willing to amplify it. Because the events happened 30 years ago, but this is a sadly present reality.

The Bosnian War is a war we experienced firsthand, in a literal and emotional sense. We remember the siege of Sarajevo. As well as the Srebrenica massacre. And so many other images that still surface in our memory when we mentally revisit those years. What has been done and is being done in all the wars that are much further away? What do we prefer not to know? What continues to justify the context of a war that is unjustifiable in times of peace? Each generation lives with the helplessness of watching human beings prey upon one another. There is no need to compile a list of atrocities. They pile up, and all are chilling. To the sadism of paying to kill innocents is added the brutal norm of sexual violence against women as a weapon of war, or the practice of letting children starve to death, or the most savage torture of other human beings. Nothing is excusable because of the context. If anything, the context allows the brutality to be even greater. It's a war, they say, as if wars were inevitable.

In the world, there are always people willing to paint the darkest, most bleak picture for us. But there are also always those willing to illuminate it. That is why it is important to offer constant and discreet recognition, because the spotlight often misses those who, no matter how many years pass, persist in the pursuit of justice. No one can bring back the dead, nor can anyone prevent sadism, but it is somewhat comforting that so many crimes do not go unpunished and so much pain is not systematically disregarded. The damage is done. But we must be able to continue painting the landscape ourselves.