5,000 Desperate Bosnians Flee Across Killing Fields

Thousands of desperate Muslims ventured into one of Bosnia’s most brutal war zones trying to find food Thursday, and U.N. officials said some were dying en route.

U.N. officials in Tuzla, in northeastern Bosnia-Herzegovina, said Serbian militiamen were letting the Muslims leave besieged towns in order to carry out “ethnic cleansing” in the region.

A new aid convoy, meanwhile, moved toward Sarajevo in central Bosnia as U.N. officials warned that food stocks in the besieged capital would run out in three days unless replenished. Aid shipments were curtailed this week after attacks on a U.N. convoy.

As international mediators prepared for new talks in New York on a proposed peace plan for Bosnia, heavy fighting was reported in eastern Bosnia. The Muslim-led government has been winning back some eastern areas lost to Serbs last year in the war over the republic’s secession from Yugoslavia.

Intensified fighting also was reported in southern Croatia, where Croatia’s army is pressing a 2-week-old drive against the Serb-controlled Krajina region.

Croatian Serbs said they shot down a Croatian warplane that tried to bomb Serb-held Mirkovci village. There was no independent confirmation.

Thursday’s statement by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Muslims were leaving from the Cerska and Kamenica areas and walking about 20 miles to Tuzla.

The Bosnian war has killed at least 18,000 people and created 1 million refugees. Some of the worst fighting has been in the east, which borders Serbia. The first battles were fought there when Serbian militias invaded last spring. Muslim forces have been waging a big offensive there in recent weeks.

The statement said nearly 5,000 Muslim refugees were expected to arrive in Tuzla by today. The first ones left early this week.

“These people are arriving in very bad medical condition . . . and there are reports of deaths along the way,” it said.

Serbian forces were “simply standing by and letting them pass the front line,” as Serbian leaders promised last week in what they said was a humanitarian gesture.

The Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said Bosnian Serb military officials reported new Muslim-led attacks in eastern Bosnia, targeting Serbian positions around Zvornik, on the border with Serbia, and Bratunac, farther south.

On Croatia’s Adriatic coast, where a year-old Croatian-Serbian truce collapsed two weeks ago, both sides reported fighting around Serb-held Benkovac. Croatian troops appeared to be trying to capture the town in preparation for an attack on Knin, capital of the armed Serb rebels in Croatia.

Disputed areas held by Serbs elsewhere in Croatia have remained quiet under the U.N.-mediated cease-fire.