Bosnia Airlifts Not Enough, U.N. Aide Says
The United Nations’ top refugee official, touring devastated Sarajevo in a flak jacket, said Wednesday that airlift supplies are not enough to solve the plight of Bosnia’s people.
Sadako Ogata, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, spoke at a news conference not long after a crowd of about 60 exhausted people broke into a storeroom for aid--only to find it empty.
The crowd surged into the building after a woman smashed her fist through a window, spraying blood and shattered glass around her. “I can’t stand it anymore,” she yelled.
Ogata was issued a camouflage-pattern flak jacket before being whisked through the Bosnian capital, the scene of fierce battles involving tanks Tuesday, with an escort of heavily armed U.N. troops.
“The airlift is not the solution, far from the solution,” she said after talks with representatives of the warring factions in Sarajevo.
“So far, there have been 84 flights and more than 900 tons of supplies,” Ogata told a news conference, “but the main emphasis must be on land convoys. . . . Sarajevo is not the only place that needs assistance.”
Ogata is on the third day of a five-day visit to see Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.
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