Fighting Subsides in Hungry Sarajevo

Hunger gripped parts of this blockaded city Thursday, and some residents were reported eating grass. But the fighting subsided, and an agreement appeared to be near on reopening the airport to U.N. relief shipments.

“We are making excellent progress on both sides,” said the chief negotiator, U.N. Brig. Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, as his officers met with the rival factions.

In Belgrade, U.N. spokeswoman Barbara Shannon Boyd said the Serbs already have signed an agreement that would put their heavy weapons under U.N. supervision.

MacKenzie reportedly is presenting a similar plan to leaders of Bosnian forces, she said.

Eighty U.N. personnel were deployed at the airport without incident to prepare it for emergency aid flights, Shannon Boyd said. The United Nations also succeeded in reopening the highway linking Belgrade and the Croatian capital, Zagreb, to U.N. traffic.

A French relief convoy, including a red London double-decker bus, entered Sarajevo with 130 tons of food, medicine and clothing--the biggest stock of emergency supplies to arrive in weeks.

Fierce fighting around Sarajevo on Tuesday and Wednesday ended a cease-fire that had brought a brief peace to the ravaged city. Serbs and the city’s Muslim defenders battled with artillery and lighter weapons overnight, but the fighting ebbed early Thursday.