Dubrovnik Under Heaviest Assault So Far

The Serbian-led Yugoslav army and navy pounded Dubrovnik relentlessly Sunday in the heaviest assault so far on the historic Adriatic port. Battles raged elsewhere across the breakaway republic.

At least 40 people were killed in weekend fighting, despite the announcement of European Community sanctions against Yugoslavia and an appeal by Serbia and its allies for the United Nations to send in peacekeeping troops.

Radio Dubrovnik said 11 people were killed in the air and sea attack as the army fought its way to within a few hundred yards of the city and raised the Yugoslav flag on Mt. Srdj, which towers over Dubrovnik.

Almost no part of the city escaped bombardment. A hotel housing European Community monitors was hit, and Radio Dubrovnik said shells fell on the medieval old town, damaging the stone Minceta Tower on its edge and a house just off its marble-tiled main street.

Reporters in the city said some fearful residents stood on their balconies and fired automatic weapons or even pistols at federal gunboats pounding the port.

Croatian authorities, their forces outgunned and outnumbered, appealed for a cease-fire around Dubrovnik.

Battles also raged around Karlovac, 30 miles south of the Croatian capital of Zagreb, where 20 Croatian fighters were killed Saturday.

Many more people were feared dead, especially in the strategic Danube River town of Vukovar. Croats defending the town said it was on the verge of falling after an 11-week siege by federal tanks, artillery, jets and infantry.

Belgrade media said Yugoslav troops had captured a strategic hill overlooking the city center. A Croatian defense official in Vukovar said by telephone that the two sides were fighting hand to hand in the streets.

Belgrade TV showed film of the battle in Vukovar reminiscent of footage of the final Allied push in Germany in World War II. Federal soldiers climbed through shattered windows and the rubble of wrecked houses.

Vukovar, on the Croatian side of the Danube River boundary with Serbia, has stood in the way of the federal army’s efforts to seize absolute control over a large piece of eastern Croatia. An estimated 12,000 of the original 40,000 residents are still holed up in the city.

With Croatia’s military situation deteriorating and a third of its territory now controlled by the army and Serb irregulars, Croatian Information Minister Branko Salaj scorned a call by the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav collective presidency Saturday for the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force in the republic.

The appeal appeared to be an attempt to forestall a U.N. oil embargo requested Friday by the EC when it imposed economic sanctions on Yugoslavia. The United States joined in the sanctions Saturday and said it would co-sponsor the oil embargo resolution.

Croatia has said it would accept peacekeepers along its prewar borders, not at the front lines now deep within its territory, as Serbia suggests.

Croatia’s foreign minister, Zvonimir Separovic, appealed Sunday to the world community to intervene in the fighting to save Vukovar, Dubrovnik and other communities.

The fighting began after Croatia declared its independence June 25. Serbia has said Croatia cannot secede from Yugoslavia within its prewar borders, claiming that the republic’s 600,000-strong Serbian minority would face persecution.