Two Orphans Killed While Trying to Flee Embattled Sarajevo

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — A bus carrying 50 orphans out of Sarajevo was hit by anti-aircraft fire Saturday night, killing a 2-year-old retarded girl and a 1-year-old boy, the orphanage said.

The bus was driving east out of Sarajevo on a road known as “Sniper Alley” when it was hit by the heavy machine-gun fire, said Dusko Tomic, director of the Medjasi Children’s Embassy charity.

“It’s an absolute catastrophe. No other kids were wounded, but they were all screaming,” Tomic said.

The children had been waiting for six days to be evacuated to Bavaria, in southern Germany, and had been unable to fly out because the airport was closed by heavy fighting.

The attack came as Bosnian government forces continued a major counteroffensive aimed at breaking the Serbian noose that has choked the Bosnian capital for months.

Tomic said his group had received no escort from the U.N. protection force that is providing food and medicine to the 300,000 residents of the besieged capital.

The 48 children who survived the attack, along with 10 adults, were taken in by families at the suburb where the attack occurred and were to travel on later, according to Radio 99, an independent station.

Tomic said the survivors eventually would travel to the Croatian port of Split, where a plane was to take them to Germany.

The U.N. civil affairs officer in Sarajevo, Mik Magnusson, said the bus had left Sarajevo at 7 p.m., a “daft time” to start off.

He said Serb and Muslim fighters were battling all around Sarajevo at the time.

Bosnian government officials, who have been pressing the international community to intervene militarily, have become increasingly desperate in recent weeks as it has become clear that no help is coming.

Earlier, Bosnian radio reported that government forces had advanced to Vogosca, northwest of Sarajevo, and had surrounded Serb-held Ilijas, farther northwest.

Vogosca separates Sarajevo from Muslim forces in Visoko and Zenica, and the Muslims appeared to be trying to break the Serb siege of the city.

Their claims of battlefield success could not be independently verified.

The Belgrade-based Tanjug news agency quoted Bosnian Serb sources as saying four Serb soldiers were killed and three wounded in a Muslim attack on Trnovo, 25 miles south of the capital.

It said Trnovo was still in Serb hands, despite a reported siege by more than 2,000 territorial defense forces.

Croatian radio said late Saturday that 43 people were killed and 586 wounded in fighting throughout Bosnia over the past 24 hours. Most of the casualties, it said, were in Sarajevo.

Thousands of people have died since Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats voted for independence from Serb-led Yugoslavia on Feb. 29.