New Year, Old Miseries for Sarajevo : Balkans: Five are killed and 38 are wounded as Serbian shells rain on the Bosnian capital once again.

For Sarajevans, 1993 ended pretty much as it began: Serbian gunners shelled the city, killing at least five people, hospital officials reported.

During a brief respite from the worst shelling in two months, people had crowded the meager markets for last-minute New Year’s Eve shopping, looking for a little something special they could afford.

Suddenly, mortars rained from the sky. The toll, in addition to the five dead: 38 wounded and most of what little holiday spirit had been mustered destroyed.

The strain was obvious for these people, for whom the new year means more of the death, blood and tears they have endured for nearly 21 months.

Lejla Buturovic, 22, recalled how she and some friends managed to put together a New Year’s Eve party last year.

“We bought some liquor on the black market,” she said. “Girls prepared hamburgers and sandwiches out of canned beef we got as humanitarian aid. We had a tape recorder running on a car battery.

“That New Year’s party was a kind of resistance to this horrible war. This year, I don’t have any strength to resist anymore. I am not going to celebrate anything--not even that I am still alive in this hell.”

In a bleak year-end report, a U.N. aid official blamed Bosnian political and military leaders for leaving people cold and hungry this winter.

“There is no reason for any person to be hungry or cold in Bosnia this winter,” said Tony Land, a representative of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. “It is completely political and military.”

Land said there is enough food and fuel for millions of needy people in Bosnia but the problem is getting it to them.

Bosnian Serbs, Croats and the Muslim-led government have made no effort to separate humanitarian concerns from military ones during the civil war.

Relief officials estimate that more than half of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s prewar population of 4.3 million is dependent on international aid. The three sides have said they would not impede aid convoys.

But U.N. officials said that a Russian convoy of aid for the besieged eastern Bosnian town of Gorazde turned back because Serbs would not give clearance to French U.N. soldiers escorting it.