Italian Cargo Ship Taking Food and Medicine to Embattled Dubrovnik

An Italian navy cargo ship loaded with food and medicine left early today on a relief trip to Croatia’s war-scarred coastal region.

The San Marco is scheduled to arrive later in the day in Dubrovnik, a major target in Yugoslavia’s five-month civil war.

The medieval port has been blockaded and bombarded by Yugoslav federal forces for seven weeks, and civilians have grown desperate since water and electricity were cut off.

Officials from the U.N. Children’s Fund, as well as Italy’s immigration minister, Margherita Boniver, and the French minister for humanitarian affairs, Bernard Kouchner, traveled to Dubrovnik last week to seek permission for international aid vessels to sail across the Adriatic.

Yugoslavia agreed on Sunday to receive the San Marco, after two public appeals by Italian President Francesco Cossiga.

By Sunday evening, 50 tons of whole wheat biscuits, bottled water, milk and other food had been loaded on the San Marco. Antibiotics and children’s medicines were also put on board.

Seven Italian navy doctors and eight Red Cross nurses were traveling to treat residents wounded in the shelling of Dubrovnik.

“We are prepared for anything,” said Maurizio de Girolamo, a navy anesthesiologist.

A navy spokesman, Cmdr. Maurizio Ferro, said the ship could hold up to 1,000 refugees, if Italian and Yugoslav authorities decided to evacuate them.