Serbs Claim Control of Second ‘Safe Area’ : Balkans: Bosnian government denies report that Zepa has fallen.

The Muslim enclave of Zepa fell Wednesday, the Bosnian Serb army claimed, shattering a second U.N.-protected “safe area” and putting in jeopardy 16,000 Muslim refugees.

Zepa has been under nationalist Serb artillery and tank attack for six days, following the fall of Srebrenica on July 11. Loss of that enclave triggered the largest single forced exodus in the 39-month Bosnian war in which an estimated 200,000 people already have been killed. It cast doubts on the survival of the U.N. peacekeeping mission here.

Bosnian Serb radio said evacuation of the Muslims in Zepa would begin today and the rebel Serbs would allow removal of 30 wounded Muslims.

Two civilian representatives of Zepa, in a meeting with Bosnian Serb army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, accepted the Bosnian Serbs’ terms of surrender, the radio reported.

The Serb claims could not be independently verified. The Bosnian government in Sarajevo denied Zepa had fallen and late Wednesday said units of its army continued to defend the town. The United Nations could not confirm or deny the reports because most of its peacekeepers in Zepa are huddled in their base camp, unable to monitor the battles raging around them.

“Zepa has surrendered,” said a statement issued by the Bosnian Serb army from its headquarters in Pale, nine miles southeast of Sarajevo.

When they conquered Srebrenica, the Bosnian Serbs--in the practice of “ethnic cleansing”--expelled almost 30,000 refugees, mostly women and children, and rounded up most men. Refugees later gave horrifying accounts of rape, execution and other atrocities allegedly committed by the Serbs. Thousands of people remain unaccounted for.

From Zepa, there were unconfirmed reports that civilians had begun to flee the town in advance of the Bosnian Serbs. “The Serbs have not yet penetrated the town, but there is huge panic in the population,” Mehmet Hajric, the mayor of Zepa, was quoted as saying by amateur radio operators.

The Bosnian Serbs said they would let the people of Zepa leave under U.N. escort and go to the government-held town of Kladanj, then possibly on to Tuzla. But the guarantees of safety rang hollow since the people of Srebrenica had been told the same thing.

Having failed to protect Srebrenica, the U.N. mission, and the international community as a whole, seemed to write off Zepa, arguing it was not defensible and making no effort to stop the Serbs. It was a major defeat for the United Nations, whose credibility and authority now seem irreparably destroyed.

Zepa was guarded by 79 Ukrainian peacekeepers, whom the government earlier Wednesday accused of collaborating with the enemy. Amid increasing tensions between the government and the United Nations, the Foreign Ministry had demanded the Ukrainian peacekeepers be replaced in both Zepa and Gorazde, the third of the vulnerable eastern enclaves.

Hajric asserted that the Ukrainians’ commander had crossed military lines to join the besieging Serbs. U.N. officials denied this. The Bosnian government also accused the Ukrainians of black-market profiteering with fuel and humanitarian aid and said they allowed the rebel Serbs to spy on the Bosnian army from U.N. observation posts. It denied U.N. claims that government forces, facing defeat, overran the Ukrainians’ posts and stole the peacekeepers’ weapons.

Jovan Zametica, a spokesman for Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, said the fall of the enclaves should help the West accept reality--that the nationalist Serbs have won the war--and seek a negotiated settlement.

The Serbs already controlled nearly 70% of Bosnia-Herzegovina, land they seized in three years of war and with the backing of the formidable Yugoslav National Army. If Zepa has fallen and Gorazde follows, the Serbs will have wiped out the last Muslim presence in eastern Bosnia and will control an uninterrupted swath of land from Serbia to Sarajevo and central Bosnia.

And in a sign of what is to come, the Serbs on Wednesday intensified attacks on Bihac, an enclave in the far northwestern corner of Bosnia.