Attack on German Transport Plane Halts Sarajevo Relief Flights

Aid flights to Sarajevo were halted indefinitely Saturday after antiaircraft fire struck a German transport plane, officials said.

A crewman was injured in the incident, which caused the plane to return to Zagreb, the Croatian capital, where U.N. relief flights originate.

A spokesman for the United Nations Protection Force said aid flights to Sarajevo would be halted until further notice.

It was unclear who fired on the plane, hitting it in the propeller, as it was airborne outside Zagreb. Fighting across the region is widespread, with Serbs battling Croatian forces in a renewed war in Croatia as well as Muslim-led forces in the 11-month-old Bosnian conflict.

Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said he was “deeply concerned” by the shooting, which he said not only impeded relief efforts but also jeopardized the peace process.

In a statement released in New York, Boutros-Ghali called on all parties to “cease immediately all hostile action” against U.N. personnel and aircraft.

He said that the load master of the flight was wounded in the abdomen by shrapnel and had been hospitalized for treatment.

Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, meanwhile, spoke of mass expulsions of Muslims under way in the southeastern town of Trebinje. He gave no figures, but U.N. officials on Feb. 2 said 2,000 Muslims were ousted by Serbs in the town.

Yugoslavia, dominated by its larger remaining republic, Serbia, has been under U.N. sanctions for Bosnia’s rebel Serbs.

With little progress reported in peace talks in New York, Yugoslav commanders in Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, have focused on the prospect of Western intervention.

“I would not advise anybody to test our weapons,” said Gen. Bozidar Stevanovic, the Yugoslav air force commander, in an interview with the Yugoslav newspaper Politika.

Gen. Zivota Panic, the Yugoslav chief of staff, was quoted as telling Kathimerini, an Athens daily, that the West “will encounter very difficult times” if the United States and its allies launch air strikes.

The Yugoslav news agency Tanjug reported Saturday that the United Nations’ economic sanctions were choking off diesel fuel, spare parts and fertilizer, hurting plans for spring planting.