From: sharon@unixland.natick.ma.us (Sharon Machlis Gartenberg)
Subject: Sarajevans driven from their homes
Organization: Unixland Public Access Unix  (508) 655-3848
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 16:12:20 GMT

Excerpts from ``500 Muslims Driven by Serbs Through a Gantlet of Terror''
by John F. Burns in the Oct. 2, 1992 New York Times. 
Please note these are his words and observations, not mine.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Oct. 1 -- ... From noon Wednesday 
until dusk today, at least 500 residents of Grbavica, a leafy suburb
that clings to the steep hillsides across the Miljacka River from the
heart of Sarajevo, have come across the bridges into the city center,
sometimes being fired on as they ran.

From their accounts it appears that most were given 10 to 15 minutes
to leave their homes. Many told of being robbed of money, jewelry and
other valuables, and most arrived with only small bags of clothing.

At least one woman, a judge, said she had been raped. An 80-year-old
woman arrived in her socks, saying she had been refused permission
to get her shoes for the walk into the life of a refugee. ...

Other recent violations of this pledge [the Serbian pledge to halt 
``ethnic cleansing'' made at last month's conference in London] have
been reported, especially in northern Bosnia near the city of
Banja Luka. But the case of Grbavica is unusual for having been 
observed by Western reporters while in progress.

With a hotel curtain pulled aside a couple of inches so as not to
attract the attention of Serbian snipers on the Grbavica side of
the bridge, the miserable realities of ethnic cleansing were
plainly visible.

Every now and then a gaggle of men, women and children dashed
onto the bridge from the Serbian side, clutching suitcases patched
together with tape, scuffed backpacks and bulging plastic bags.
Some children were so small they had to be carried, and some adults
so old they had to pause every few steps, lean on the side of the
bridge and catch their breath.

The lucky ones made it to the hotel without braving gunfire. Others
were forced to make the dash amid crossfire between Serbian and 
Bosnian government troops. ...

[Aslija Fetahovic, 80,] said young Serbian militants burst into her
apartment at lunchtime on Wednesday. ... ``They were big men, all
bearded, with Chetnik uniforms and badges, and they said: `You've
got 10 minutes to leave your home. If you have any gold or foreign
currency or jewelry, you must give it to us, or we will kill you' ...
I asked if I could get my boots out from the cupboard, but they said,
`Out! Out! Out!''' ...

At the drafty reception center in Sarajevo, many of the new refugees
said they had been told to hand over their keys, and not to lock
anything, on pain of immediate execution. Mrs. Fetahovic said that
before stepping out of her door with two small bags of clothes, she
was halted while one of the gunmen pulled off her gold earrings.

Another woman, Nadira Sehovic, aged 47, said she had handed over
6,000 German marks, about $4,250, that she and her husband had
saved for the education of their two children, a girl of 12 and a
boy of 10.

A middle-aged woman, a judge until the war, told reporters that she
had been raped by Serbian soldiers. ...

Since Serbian forces seized the neighborhood in the early stages of
the Sarajevo seige, Muslims escaping the neighborhood have told of
being subjected to midnight searches, denied pension payments, and
harassed on the streets. Hundreds of Muslim men deemed of fighting
age have been taken to Serbian detention camps, and others have
been dragooned into working parties to dig trenches, fill sandbags
and clean latrines.

Several times before, hundreds of Muslims have been driven at
gunpoint across the bridges into the Government-held heart of
Sarajevo, where they start the dread round of finding new homes,
scrounging for food and, in many cases, lining up at relief
agencies in the hope of tracing missing husbands, brothers, and
sons.

The exent of the war's toll was underscored by the release today
of new figures compiled by the Bosnian medical crisis center in
Sarajevo, which said 14,364 people were known to have been killed
across Bosnia with 57,000 others listed as missing, most of them
believed to be dead. The center said that the figures included
1,447 children known to have been killed and 8,500 who were missing.
In addition, the center listed 125,784 people as having been wounded,
47,284 seriously, among whom were 12,080 children. Bosnia's prewar
population was 4.3 million.

This time, none of those crossing the bridges were injured, but one 
man, Fadil Dedic, appeared to have had a narrow escape. The 40-year-
old Muslim carpenter told of being halted by a Serbian fighter as he
rushed to the bridge with his wife, his 16-year-old son and his
mother. As he kneeled on the sidewalk, Mr. Dedic said, the Serb drew
his pistol and forced it [in] his mouth.

``I was sure he was going to kill him,'' said Velija Dedic, the man's
son. ``Just then, a Serbian policeman came around the corner and 
said: `Don't do it. Let him go.' '' ...

-- 
Sharon Machlis Gartenberg
Framingham, MA  USA
email: sharon@unixland.natick.ma.us   or   uunet!think.com!unixland!sharon