Serbs Hold 5,000 Hostages Fleeing the War in Bosnia

The New York Times

May 21, 1992

By CHUCK SUDETIC,

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, May 20— Serbian leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina said today that their guerrillas would not release about 5,000 women, children and elderly people being held in a Sarajevo suburb until the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina lifted blockades of Yugoslav Army barracks and met other conditions.

On Tuesday night, Serbian gunmen halted a column of about 1,000 cars, 20 buses and 10 vans in the suburb of Ilidza as the refugees attempted to leave Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. Serbian forces have besieged and bombarded Bosnia and its capital for more than a month in an effort to partition the republic. 2,200 Dead, 7,600 Wounded

Officials of the Children's Embassy, a local relief group that organized the convoy, said they had obtained written guarantees of safe passage from officials of the self-styled Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbian guerrilla forces, together with the virtually all-Serb Yugoslav Army, have overrun more than 60 percent of Bosnia, driving non-Serbs from their homes.

The mothers and children in the convoy, which was headed for the Croatian port of Split, are ethnically mixed, officials said.

The people of Bosnia and Herzegovina are a mix of 1.9 million Muslim Slavs and 750,000 Roman Catholic Croats, who mostly support independence, and 1.4 million Eastern Orthodox Serbs, who mostly oppose it, especially those in rural areas.

About 2,225 people have died and 7,660 have been wounded in the republic since the Serbs began their campaign to dismember the republic, health authorities in Sarajevo said today. Another 2,555 were listed as missing. Relief organizations estimate that there are 700,000 refugees.

Late this afternoon, two armored vehicles belonging to the United Nations peacekeeping force in Sarajevo were turned back by Serbian gunmen at a roadblock when the peacekeepers tried to enter Ilidza. They came under artillery fire on their return to their headquarters a few miles away, Sarajevo radio and United Nations officials said. Threat of Retaliation

Young men and parents of the children being held threatened to retaliate against Serbs in Sarajevo if the hostages were not released quickly, Government officials said. Many Serbs in Sarajevo support and take part in the defense of the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was recognized in early April by the United States and members of the European Community.

Serbian leaders are demanding the return of the bodies of Serbs killed in fighting around Sarajevo during the last week, as well as the lifting of a blockade around Yugoslav Army barracks in the city and an officers' training school nearby. Bleakness in Sarajevo

Three Yugoslav Army barracks in Sarajevo remained surrounded today by ethnically mixed forces loyal to Bosnia, despite an agreement to allow the garrisons to depart on Tuesday, Sarajevo radio said. Repeated attacks on Yugoslav Army convoys have also held up their withdrawal.

Water and electricity supplies are still disrupted in Sarajevo, which also faces serious food and medical shortages because normal deliveries and aid convoys are not being allowed through by the Serbian gunmen.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has canceled plans to send two large convoys with food and medicine to Sarajevo because of a Serbian attack this week on a Red Cross convoy that left one aid official dead.

In Geneva today, the International Red Cross said it would temporarily remove its eight-person team from Sarajevo, a city of about 560,000 people.