Sarajevo Refugees Turned Back

Ethnic Croats frustrated by delays in a promised evacuation tried to walk out of this besieged city Saturday, but they were turned back by armed guards.

The guns were mostly silent in the capital, but the fighting raged on elsewhere in the country. And for the first time, U.N. peacekeepers fired back when their vehicles were attacked.

British soldiers on a reconnaissance mission returned fire after they drove into a gun battle at Ribnica, 20 miles south of Tuzla, in central Bosnia-Herzegovina. There were no British casualties, and it was not clear who was responsible for the attack.

“It’s very sad because we are not here to fire our weapons,” battalion commander Robert Stewart said.

“The decision of my soldiers on the ground to return fire was the right one and, quite frankly, probably saved their lives and got them out of a tricky situation,” he said.