From: hubey@pilot.njin.net (Hubey)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe
Subject: Sunday Times
Date: 5 Nov 92 09:56:32 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


Reposted:

From TEX5HAD@CMS1.LEEDS.AC.UK (Haluk DEMIRBAG) Wed Nov  4 22:51:16 1992
Subject: BOSNIANS FLEE ALONG AN ICY ROAD TO HELL (THE SUNDAY TIMES,
              1 Nov. 1992)

BOSNIANS FLEE ALONG AN ICY ROAD TO HELL

Bosnia is facing  one its worst humanitarian  catastrophes of the
war  this weekend,  with  thousands of  refugees  fleeing over  a
tortuous mountain road  under shell and sniper  fire from Serbian
forces. The United Nations said the plight of the refugees was on
a scale not  seen since the Kurdish disaster after  the Gulf war,
when  hundreds  of thousands  fled  from  Iraqi troops  into  the
mountains.

One Bosnian  refugee, escaping from  the captured town  of Jayce,
said his group of 200 had come under fire from anti-aircraft guns
on mountainsides. About 30 were killed or wounded.

Some 5,000 fleeing the fighting were trapped in Karaula, a ruined
hamlet exposed  to freezing cold  and driving rain.  Behind them,
20,000-40,000 were on the road  in a 10-mile column, according to
the UN  high commissioner  for refugees.  Some managed  to escape
Karaula and make their way to  Travnik, but most were still there
last night.

Between  8,000 and  10,000 people  had  made it  to safety  after
escaping marauding Serbian  troops who captured the  town after a
five-month siege.  "Thousands have already arrived  in Travnik on
foot and  horseback, and in  cars, trucks  and buses," said  a UN
representative in  Zagreb. "They had  been on the road  for three
days. It is very cold and  wet. We are sending hundreds of tonnes
of food and blankets."

British  troops  have  joined  the relief  effort,  providing  an
ambulance service  in Travnik  and ferrying supplies  in vehicles
which arrived last week at the Crotian port of Split.

Travnik, already  swollen by 25,000 refugees,  is ill-prepared to
take the  new influx. "Welcome  to hell," read an  inscription on
the  door  of  a  converted  barracks  already  sheltering  3,000
refugees from earlier "ethnic  cleansing". Inside there were only
three overflowing  lavatories, no running water  and intermittent
power supplies.

The survivors spoke of the hardship. "We've walked 50 kilometres,
up to  our knees in water  and mud," said Tramisa  Mulanovic, who
carried her two  children, one on each arm. "They  were firing at
us as  soon as  we tried  to leave.  The shots  came close  to my
feet."

Mustafa Civa  said: "We left  eveything and fled bacause  we were
afraid we would be butchered. The last time I saw Jajce it was in
flames."

In a  cot in Travnik  hospital, Steven Greenwood, 25,  from Kent,
who joined the Bosnian army five  months ago and was injured by a
mortar  blast, described  the battle  for Jajce  as a  "nightmare
scene". Greenwood  said: "Towards the  end most of  the civilians
didn't come above ground but stayed in basements or shelters. The
city was on the verge of being levelled."

Most observers believe the war in  Bosnia is in its final throes,
with  the  Serbians  having  carved out  a  territorial  corridor
stretching from Serbia itself across Bosnia to Serb-held enclaves
in Crotia.

THE SUNDAY TIMES, 1 November 1992 (London)

---
The Sunday Times Sarajevo Appeal

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	mark	


   hubey@pilot.njin.net                   hubey@apollo.montclair.edu
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