Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: 1,500 jam buses to flee Sarajevo; thousands of refugees Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 17:03:26 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD \SS (WS) \HD 1,500 jam buses to flee Sarajevo; thousands of refugees stranded \BY David Crary \CR ASSOCIATED PRESS \DT SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - About 1,500 people jammed into buses yesterday for a hasty escape from this shattered city while a cease-fire continued to hold. Elsewhere, there were scattered reports of fighting but no serious violations of the 4-day-old truce. But the war, which broke out in March after Muslims and Croats voted to break away from Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia, continued to take its toll. United Nations officials said thousands of refugees streaming south from the western Bosnian town of Jajce toward a refugee center in Travnik were stranded near Karaula. A British armored team sent to rescue them had not been successful, the U.N. officials said. The officials did not have further details. But refugees in the area said between 500 and 2,000 people were trapped by fighting as Serbs, who captured Jajce several weeks ago, advanced southeast toward Travnik, 45 miles northwest of Sarajevo. In the capital, about 600 Serbs, mostly women and children, bade tearful farewell to husbands and fathers and were safely evacuated on Red Cross buses to the Serbian-held suburb of Lukavica. About 900 Croats, former residents of the battered western suburb Stup, later climbed into the same buses and headed west toward Croatian-controlled Kiseljak, about 15 miles away. "I'm sad because we're splitting up," said Branimir Pavlovic, a young Serbian father, as he waved to his departing wife and 3-year-old son. He said they hoped eventually to go to London. "I'll try to go, too, but I don't know when or how," he said. Once he leaves, he said, he does not intend to return. "I'd live anywhere, but never again in the Balkans." His family, like the other evacuated Serbs, was to be transferred in Lukavica to buses bound for Belgrade, the Serbian and federal Yugoslav capital. Among the Croats, Zdenka Lukic said she was leaving her mother and grandmother behind and heading to the Croatian port of Split for the sake of her 9-year-old son, Vidor. Like most Sarajevo children, he's had no school, little recreation and poor nutrition since the siege began. "This trip I make for my son, not for me," Ms. Lukic said. "For myself, I feel a confusion of emotions." Red Cross workers and military police struggled to keep order and turn away people who tried to board the buses even though they were not on lists approved by Bosnian authorities. Organizers of the two convoys said there were still about 1,500 Serbs and 1,000 Croats hoping to evacuate if further convoys could be arranged. The evacuation appeared to go off without a hitch, in sharp contrast to the months of tortuous negotiation that preceded it. On Wednesday, the evacuation of the Serbs was postponed after a bus driver was wounded by shrapnel. It was not clear why the cease-fire was holding better than previous ones, many of which have collapsed within hours. U.N. officials said they held out more hope this time because the truce was signed by military officials from all sides. But there were some reports that the warring sides were using the truce to rearm and redeploy. At least 14,000 people have been killed in fighting that broke out since Muslims, 43 percent of the prewar population of 4.3 million, and Croats, 17 percent, voted for independence. Many Serbs, a third of the population, demand continued association with Yugoslavia. Ethnic Serbs, backed by Yugoslavia, have captured about 70 percent of the breakaway republic, and more than a million people have been forced to flee their homes. While U.N. officials said they did not have immediate accounts of serious truce violations, Bosnian radio reported fighting around the towns of Gradacac, Maglaj and Brcko to the north. It also said Olovo, a strategic Serbian target northeast of Sarajevo, and the refugee center of Travnik to the northwest had been shelled. Serbs said their forces around the central town of Doboj and south of Sarajevo had come under attack. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM