Medical Team Rescues 100 in Croatia Siege

Volunteer medical workers braved a hail of gunfire Saturday to evacuate more than 100 people seriously wounded in the siege of Vukovar, which has been sealed off from the rest of Croatia and pounded by Serbian and federal army artillery for more than a month.

Two European nurses from the international humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders were badly injured during the relief effort when one truck of the 12-vehicle rescue convoy drove over a mine, the Tanjug news agency reported.

Belgrade television showed one of the injured women lying motionless on the smoky, single-lane road into Vukovar taken by the convoy of trucks and white jeeps flying the European Community’s blue flag.

The nurses were taken to a military hospital in Belgrade for treatment of injuries that Tanjug said were serious but not life-threatening.

Both Croatian and federal forces had agreed to halt shooting long enough to allow the medical team to remove the most serious casualties. But shells fired from surrounding villages in the hands of Serbian guerrillas rained on the evacuation route despite the latest cease-fire agreement.

The guerrillas have been backed by the Serbian-commanded federal army in their nearly four-month fight against Croatian independence. But the Serbian rebels often operate independently of the army, ignoring federal calls for all combatants to hold their fire.

Croatian national guardsmen holed up in the besieged city are known to have mined access roads to Vukovar to deter further advances by the federal and Serbian forces.

Yugoslav Defense Minister Veljko Kadijevic announced in Belgrade early Saturday that federal troops had been ordered to stop shooting as of noon to allow evacuation of those most seriously wounded in the protracted fighting for control of Vukovar.

Croatian President Franjo Tudjman also called on republic national guardsmen defending Vukovar to abide by the cease-fire and to lift blockades around federal garrisons in Croatia.

Several dozen army tanks and armored cars were reported by Croatian radio to have left the Borongaj barracks outside Zagreb after the presidential order to clear the way for their retreat from the republic.

Croatian media said the troops and their hardware appeared to be headed for neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina, where many fear the next escalation of fighting will break out among the republic’s wary populations of Muslims, Serbs and Croats.

No reliable casualty figures have been released after nearly four months of civil war in Yugoslavia, but Western diplomats say at least 2,000 have been killed.

Doctors Without Borders--known in Europe as Medecins Sans Frontieres--managed to bring out 109 of the more than 300 patients being treated in the basement of Vukovar’s main hospital, a spokeswoman for the rescuers told reporters.

However, a second trip into the city to evacuate other casualties had to be called off because of danger from the shelling that continued from villages surrounding Vukovar.

The injured nurses were identified by Tanjug as Fabienne Schmidt of Belgium, who suffered a sprained ankle and contusions when she was hurled out of the car by the force of the mine blast, and Ghislaine Jacquier of Switzerland, whose right leg was fractured.

Another aid caravan escorted by European Community mediators was turned back four times last week when it tried to take food and medicine into the city that once housed 50,000 people.

Soldiers at army roadblocks initially refused to let the EC convoy through, then Croatian forces blocked the relief mission after the vehicles spent the night at a federal garrison and fears were raised that the supplies might have been tampered with.

Vukovar has been shattered by artillery fire that has rarely slowed since early September, but embattled Croats now see defense of the key city in ethnically mixed eastern Croatia as a symbol of resistance and a possible turning point in the war they had been losing badly.

More than one-third of Croatian territory has fallen to the army and Serbian militants since fighting broke out after Croatia and Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia on June 25.

Despite a cease-fire agreed to Friday in the Netherlands at EC-mediated talks among the Yugoslav leaders, heavy rocket and artillery attacks were also reported in other areas of eastern Croatia. An oil refinery in the city of Sisak, about 30 miles southeast of Zagreb, was set ablaze in an overnight attack.

Belgrade television said federal forces were abiding by the cease-fire and had halted attacks on the Adriatic resort of Dubrovnik.

But Croatian media said the shelling had stopped only when fog shrouded the tourist mecca at midday.

Ethnic Serbs account for about 12% of Croatia’s 5 million population, and many oppose secession from Yugoslavia because they fear persecution under a new state.

Serbs are the largest ethnic group in multinational Yugoslavia, which was formed after World War I from historically hostile peoples long dominated by the Turkish Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires.

Since the demise of hard-line communism allowed nationalist sentiments to boil to the surface over the last few years, the federation has been torn by ethnic strife and recurring economic disasters.