U.N. Plans Airdrop of Aid to Bosnian City

U.N. relief officials said Monday that they will try to airdrop food and medicine to thousands of Muslim refugees in Gorazde.

The Bosnian government’s last major southeastern stronghold, Gorazde has been under Serb siege for nearly 90 days. Efforts to reach the besieged city by land have failed. Sporadic dispatches by ham radio operators speak of heavy casualties and drastic shortages of food and medical supplies.

In Sarajevo, shelling and gun battles erupted Monday after a brief lull, and families continued to bury the dead. Local radio journalists said four people died in the city, and at least 17 deaths had been reported in fighting across the republic over the previous 24 hours.

Meanwhile, leaders of the warring factions gathered in London for another effort to negotiate an end to the violence.

A cloud was cast over the meeting by the Bosnian government’s decision to attend but not negotiate. Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic told Lord Carrington, the European Community’s special envoy to the talks, that new negotiations make no sense unless prior agreements are honored.

Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic, touring Western capitals in hopes of easing U.N. sanctions on his country for fomenting violence in Bosnia, blamed the violence on Muslim, Croatian and Serbian “hoodlums.”

The fighting has killed at least 7,500 people--some estimates say more than 40,000--and has uprooted nearly one-third of Bosnia’s 4.3 million people. The war began after Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats voted on Feb. 29 for independence from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia.