Sarajevo Airlift Halted as Gunfire Rips Bosnia Truce

Fierce fighting engulfed Sarajevo and other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina on Monday, shattering a cease-fire and forcing U.N. officials to close the airport--the capital’s lifeline for aid shipments.

As Muslim victims of “ethnic cleansing” streamed out of Serb-held lands, the German and Swiss governments said they would accept more refugees, and the European Community announced new moves to punish Serbia for the war in Bosnia.

A cease-fire that went into effect Sunday night lasted less than two hours. As fighting resumed, mortars and bullets began crashing into the airport itself, demolishing a hangar and damaging the control tower.

Shrapnel injured two Canadian U.N. observers, one in the head and the other in the leg, U.N. spokesman Francois Giuliani said in New York.

Aid flights were suspended for a full day for the first time since they began June 29. Three planes in the air turned back, U.N. officials said.

Maj. Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, the U.N. commander in Sarajevo, said it was hard to tell who violated the cease-fire. When one person fires, eight fire back, he said. “It just goes up exponentially.”

Fierce battles also raged in the eastern town of Gorazde. A ham radio operator said hundreds of wounded were left “without any help, and many are lying and dying in the streets.”

About 70,000 residents and refugees in Gorazde have been under siege by Serbian forces for three months.

Under Serbian siege for almost four months, Sarajevo’s 300,000 remaining residents have relied heavily on the airlift--280 planes have brought in 3,346 metric tons of supplies in three weeks--for even the most basic staples.

Scattered small-arms fire continued during the day around the airport, in northeastern suburbs and around Serb-held Mt. Trebevic, south of the presidency building.

The new truce, agreed to Friday in London by Muslim, Serbian and Croatian leaders, included a pledge to allow U.N. peacekeepers to monitor all heavy weapons.

The European Community said Monday that it will move to kick Serbia and Montenegro, the only remaining members of Yugoslavia, out of international organizations.

Serbia has received much of the blame from the world community over the fighting in Bosnia and is suffering under tough U.N. trade and diplomatic sanctions. Serbian militants, who want to keep ties to Serb-dominated Yugoslavia, have captured about two-thirds of Bosnia since March.

On Monday, the German government--which had been less welcoming to Muslim Bosnians than it was to victims of largely Catholic Croatia’s war--relented and announced a relaxation of its visa requirements for Bosnians.