15 Nations Offer Hospital Beds for Bosnian Sick and Wounded

Offers of hospital beds for Sarajevo’s sick and wounded flooded in to the United Nations on Monday from governments under fire at home for failing to act to end Bosnia’s civil war.

Italy offered to spearhead the international effort by promising 450 beds--enough to clear a list of seriously wounded patients drawn up last week after Britain and Sweden offered to take in Sarajevo’s most desperate cases.

By late afternoon, the United Nations said it had been offered more than 660 hospital places in 15 countries.

A U.N. official called Sunday’s highly publicized evacuation of 39 patients the tip of the iceberg.

A spokeswoman in Geneva for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, Sylvana Foa, said the agency at last had what it had needed for the past 16 months--a pool of offers to draw on.

“It has turned night into day for us,” she said.

“We have so many offers now we can move people almost as fast as they come in. We would now like to take people out from other towns such as Mostar and Tuzla, if we can.”

Sunday’s airlift also sparked acrimony between the United Nations and Britain, which complained that most of the patients it received were adults and not the children it had expected.

The United Nations replied that Britain wanted to select the patients whom it would treat as if it were buying goods in a supermarket.