U.N. Warns of ‘Law of Jungle’ in Bosnia : Balkans: Refugees’ numbers swell as Serbs reportedly capture another Muslim enclave in eastern region.

As Serbian rebels reportedly rolled over another Muslim enclave in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina, U.N. officials warned Monday of rising deaths and desperation in a region now ruled by “the law of the jungle.”

Refugees--mostly women, children and the elderly--have been dragging themselves into the Bosnian government-held city of Srebrenica for days to escape the Serbian assault on their homes in nearby Konjevic Polje.

“Thousands of people are on the streets without shelter, in freezing temperatures, in the snow, just huddling around fires in the roads. Most of them haven’t had food for days,” said Laurens Jolles, representing the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, who had just returned from a four-day stay in Srebrenica.

Jolles had accompanied the U.N. commander for Bosnia-based troops, French Gen. Philippe Morillon, on a mission to pressure Serbian forces to stop blocking relief convoys to non-Serbs.

In a gesture of solidarity with the hungry victims his forces are supposed to help feed, Morillon has said he will remain in Srebrenica until relief goods are allowed through.

Morillon, who has been in the besieged city since Thursday, was said by U.N. aides in Belgrade to be meeting somewhere in eastern Bosnia with the commander of Serbian rebel forces, Gen. Ratko Mladic, in an attempt to break down the Serbs’ barricades.

“The Serbs are saying they will not let any aid convoys through until he comes out. We are at a sort of impasse,” Jolles said.

Even the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo and other previously accessible government strongholds are being threatened with a cutoff of supplies, Jolles said.

The U.N. troops under Morillon’s command are charged with escorting aid convoys to vulnerable regions of the republic and are authorized by their U.N. Security Council mandate to use “all necessary means” to reach endangered civilians.

But the U.N. commanders have so far refrained from using force to reach civilians in places like Srebrenica, which has been under constant bombardment for nearly a year.

Despite Morillon’s high-profile gesture, Bosnian Serbs backed by vigilantes and paramilitary forces from Belgrade have pressed on with a 2-week-old offensive aimed at driving out the last Muslim Slavs from eastern Bosnia.

While Morillon has been negotiating safe passage for a 23-vehicle convoy carrying food and medicine to Srebrenica, the Serbian rebels have cleaned out some of the last few pockets of resistance to their campaign for a pure Serbian state.

Ham radio operators were reporting that Konjevic Polje fell Monday. That would leave only Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde under government control in the otherwise vanquished territory east of Sarajevo.

The only food reaching Srebrenica is that being dropped by U.S. warplanes each night, which aid officials describe as a small fraction of what is needed.

“The airdrops are occurring regularly, but unfortunately it is not enough and access is only for those strong enough to get to it. There is no system for distribution, no aid structure or order. It’s the law of the jungle,” said Jolles.

The steady influx of refugees from other areas conquered by Serbs has nearly doubled Srebrenica’s population to more than 60,000. Many of the recent arrivals were wounded in their flight and languish in pain because there is only one overwhelmed doctor in the city to treat them, Jolles said. The U.N. refugee agency attempted to evacuate some of the most seriously wounded last week, but that convoy was also turned back by Serbs.

Morillon’s dramatic challenge of the rebels has marked a turning point in the U.N. operation, which until last week had been relying on vaunted predictions of an imminent diplomatic breakthrough.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, representing the United Nations, and European Community envoy Lord Owen have proposed carving up Bosnia into 10 semiautonomous ethnic provinces as a means of quelling the Serbian rebellion, which has left at least 150,000 dead or missing over the last year. But Vance and Owen failed last week to persuade Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to endorse their plan.

Milosevic and his Bosnian proxies insist that the Serbian forces must be allowed to retain rule over more of the territory they have seized and expunged of non-Serbs. The rebels currently hold about 70% of Bosnia, while they accounted for less than one-third of the prewar population.

In a further sign that Serbian forces are stiffening their resolve to create a Greater Serbia, the Bosnian Serb faction has appealed for a delay in U.N.-monitored peace talks scheduled to resume in New York this week. The Belgrade-based Tanjug news agency quoted Momcilo Krajisnik, the Speaker of the Bosnian Serbs’ self-styled Parliament, as saying the Vance-Owen proposal is still unacceptable and more time is needed to produce a counterproposal.