Three Killed as Mortar Round Hits Water Queue in Sarajevo

A mortar round slammed into a group of people waiting for water in besieged Sarajevo on Sunday, killing three and injuring five.

The attack came as the capital’s food reserves dropped desperately low following the suspension of relief flights.

The U.N. refugee office in the Croatian capital of Zagreb announced plans to resume the airlift today but said planes would no longer take off from Zagreb. The flights were halted Saturday after antiaircraft fire struck a German relief plane over Croatia after it took off from Zagreb. One crewman was injured.

U.N. spokeswoman Shannon Boyd blamed Serbian gunners for hitting the plane. After a yearlong truce, fighting in Croatia between Serbs and Croatian forces erupted anew last month.

The war in Bosnia, meanwhile, got bloodier Sunday.

In Sarajevo, a mortar round exploded near a line of people waiting for water. Two women and a child were killed, and five people were wounded, said a doctor from Sarajevo’s main hospital.

Fighting has surged across Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the past week, dealing a blow to talks at the United Nations.

Mediators held little hope of reaching a solution after the talks bogged down over their plan to end the nearly 11-month-old war. Meetings elsewhere increasingly turned to the possibility of outside military intervention.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin met in Munich, Germany, with Western military leaders to discuss Washington’s proposals on the conflict. Aspin refused to describe the proposals, saying only that Washington could act on them as early as this week.

Previously, the United States said it was not ready to commit ground forces in the war-torn region.

But NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner said at the Munich meeting that the alliance might have to use force in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the three-sided ethnic conflict has killed more than 18,000 people and created 1 million refugees.

“We must not shrink from the legitimate use of force if we are to remain credible,” Woerner said.

U.N. envoy Cyrus Vance said Sunday he believed the Security Council would get involved today.

The talks were moved to New York from Geneva last week so the 15-nation Security Council--especially the United States--could pressure the factions to compromise.