8 Die in Sarajevo Funeral Shelling : Balkans: Mortar blast hits Muslim mourners. And fighting in eastern Bosnia kills dozens.

Fighting intensified throughout central and eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina on Saturday as a mortar blast killed eight mourners at a Muslim funeral in Sarajevo and international mediators arrived in the Croatian capital for a new round of peace talks.

In the eastern Bosnian city of Gorazde, Serbian shelling reportedly left dozens dead. And near Mostar in central Bosnia, a Spanish platoon commander was killed when Croatian gunmen attacked a U.N. military patrol late Friday, U.N. forces announced.

That incident came hours after the fatal shooting of two Croatian soldiers by British U.N. forces guarding an aid convoy that had come under attack. The Croats’ deaths raised fears of reprisals against the 9,000 lightly armed U.N. peacekeepers posted throughout the embattled republic.

A U.N. spokesman said the Spanish soldier was shot on the outskirts of Mostar, several miles down the road from the convoy attack, while leading a patrol of armored vehicles carrying medical supplies to a Muslim hospital in the city. He was the 46th U.N. soldier killed in Bosnia.

“There’s no way of knowing whether there’s any connection at all with the shooting (by British forces) yesterday,” said a U.N. spokesman in Zagreb. “We have no way of knowing whether the incidents are connected, and in fact our reports indicate there has been a general lessening of antagonism toward UNPROFOR (the U.N. Protection Force) in the region.”

The heaviest casualties were reported in the eastern Bosnia enclave of Gorazde, under siege by Serbian gunners for two weeks in defiance of the U.N. Security Council’s action designating it one of six safe areas for Muslims.

Sarajevo Radio said intensive shelling had killed at least 57 people and wounded 69 more in the isolated city during the past 24 hours.

The capital itself saw its worst attack in a week when a mortar shell believed fired from a Serb-controlled hilltop landed at a Muslim funeral, killing eight mourners.

International mediators Lord Owen and Thorvald Stoltenberg arrived in Zagreb for talks with Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Mate Boban, leader of ethnic Croats in Bosnia.

They were scheduled to fly back to Geneva today to meet with Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic in the hope of convening a three-way summit of the presidents of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia next week in an attempt to salvage a peace agreement.

Meanwhile, the private aid convoy that sparked Friday’s shootings in central Bosnia remained largely stuck. As many as eight of its drivers were killed in attacks since it began its journey from the Croatian city of Split, and the others were making difficult progress in the face of continued harassment by Croatian forces and civilians.

The huge convoy, scheduled to deliver aid to Muslims in the safe area of Tuzla, came under attack by Croats angered by the Muslim government forces’ successful siege against the town of Travnik, where fighting drove thousands of Croatian residents from their homes.

“It’s rapidly losing the description of convoy. The vehicles are all fragmented, broken into small groups,” a U.N. spokesman said. At least 80 of the convoy’s 400 vehicles have been stolen by Croatian militiamen and local residents, and the remainder are on the road, blocking the path of any new aid convoys that might attempt passage when the situation calms.

British forces have been trying to persuade the convoy drivers, currently seeking refuge in Zenica, to return to the convoy and remove their vehicles, but without much success, a U.N. spokesman said.

“They’re petrified, not to put too fine a point on it,” he said.