Mine Experts Sent to Rescue Convoy in Bosnia

The United Nations dispatched mine experts and armored vehicles Friday to rescue a U.N. convoy that was disabled by a mine as it tried to reach the besieged eastern town of Gorazde.

Germany, meanwhile, sent the first of six trains to pick up several thousand Bosnian refugees who crossed part of Serb-held northern Bosnia in a convoy to Croatia.

The mine explosion late Thursday aborted the first U.N. attempt to reach Gorazde. The city has been under siege by Serb forces for 81 days, according to the Belgrade-based Tanjug news agency.

A translator was injured when the armored personnel carrier escorting the three-truck convoy drove over the mine, U.N. officials said. Three armored personnel carriers and two engineers with expertise in land mines were dispatched Friday to escort the disabled convoy back to Sarajevo.

Tens of thousands of refugees are holed up with about 30,000 residents in Gorazde, virtually the last holdout against a Serbian offensive in eastern Bosnia.

“They want to destroy it,” Bosnian defense official Maj. Dervo Harbinja said. “They want to destroy everything that moves. It is hell.”

The town’s defenders, short of food and medicine, have appealed for international aid. At least 150 people have reportedly been killed there this week.

Except for brief interruptions caused by heavy fighting, Sarajevo has been getting regular shipments of aid in an international airlift since U.N. officials took control of the airport on June 29.

But little aid has reached other parts of Bosnia.

At least 7,500 people have died since Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats voted for independence on Feb. 29. Some Bosnian officials say more than 40,000 have died. About 1.3 million of Bosnia’s prewar population of 4.3 million have fled their homes.