Bosnia Patients Trapped; U.N. Rushes Aid

The United Nations rushed in doctors and soldiers Sunday to protect hundreds of disabled patients caught in a no-man’s-land between Bosnian government forces and Croatian troops.

A team of Danish and Canadian doctors and nurses was dispatched to two hospitals in the Fojnica area, 25 miles west of the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, after most of the regular staff fled.

The team planned to join Canadian medics and peacekeepers already at the hospitals for mentally and physically disabled patients, including about 60 children.

“We’re not going to stand by and see people suffer who cannot help themselves,” said David Fillingham, a spokesman at U.N. headquarters in Kiseljak, between Fojnica and Sarajevo.

By Sunday evening, the medical reinforcements had not arrived after being held up at various checkpoints, Fillingham said.

He said the United Nations almost certainly would not attempt to evacuate the patients because “we have nowhere to take these people.”

U.N. patrols in Fojnica reported late Sunday that some government troops remained in the nearly deserted town in central Bosnia-Herzegovina. Croatian forces had moved to Fojnica’s outskirts by late Sunday, Fillingham said.

U.N. monitors were unable to enter the town itself but recorded at least 40 artillery rounds fired around Fojnica on Sunday, he said.

Bosnian army sources in Sarajevo acknowledged that government units had pulled back from some positions in Fojnica but said the army was not conceding control of the town and might try a counterattack.

Croat and Bosnian government forces were allied early in the war, which started in April, 1992, when Bosnian Serbs rebelled over a Croat-Muslim vote to secede from Serb-led Yugoslavia. The alliance collapsed as Serbs and Croats began cooperating on plans to partition Bosnia.

As many as 200,000 people have died in the fighting.

Heavy Croat shelling on Saturday led to the capture of several villages south of Fojnica, and British peacekeepers also reported a massive Croat troop buildup just 12 miles west.

Fighting was reported north of Sarajevo in the Vares region, where government troops have been battling Bosnian Croat and Bosnian Serb forces, said Maj. Manuel Cabezas, a U.N. spokesman in the Bosnian capital.