Serbs Press Fierce Assault on Mountain Gateway to Sarajevo

Fierce combat raged Monday around Mt. Igman, a gateway to besieged Sarajevo, where outgunned government defenders said they faced the war’s strongest Serbian assault in the region.

A U.N. official warned that as many as 32,000 people could be forced to make a perilous dash into suffering Sarajevo if Serbian troops capture the mountain southwest of the capital.

The attack appeared part of the effort by Bosnian Serbs and Croats to escalate pressure on the Muslim-led government to accept partition of Bosnia into three ethnic regions. The leader of Bosnian Serbs reportedly has set a deadline of today for the government to come to terms or face “total defeat.”

Bosnian army sources called the Serbian assault unprecedented, worse than a tank-backed offensive the Serbs waged to capture the western Sarajevo district of Otes in December.

Serbian forces used at least 25 tanks in the attack on Igman and had helicopters for transport purposes, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. They said Serbian artillery throughout the area shifted from their usual targets in the city to shell government positions on Igman.

The sources said fighting continued throughout the day on several parts of Mt. Igman, with the heaviest combat on the slopes above the Serbian-held town of Hadzici.

Meanwhile, in the town of Fojnica, relief workers were confronted by horrific sights, including the bodies of two small children, when they reached a mental hospital abandoned by its staff last week during fighting between government troops and Bosnian Croats.

“The situation is absolutely 100% desperate,” Jerrie Hulme, a U.N. aid worker, reported by radio from Fojnica to his office in Sarajevo, 25 miles to the east.

About 230 patients, mostly children or adolescents, had been without care at the hospital for at least three days. Hulme said that a rescue party carried in by four armored personnel carriers also visited a regular hospital on Fojnica’s outskirts, where only one staff member was on duty for 430 patients.