BOSNIA: BIHAC: CRITICAL SITUATION CLAIMS

(23 Feb 1995) English/Nat
The leader of a recently returned convoy to the besieged Bosnian enclave of Bihac says the people there have run out of food and the situation is critical.
The United Nations says it may be compelled to cut food aid to Serb-held areas if humanitarian food convoys are not regularly allowed through to feed the starving.
Rebel Muslim forces and some Serb units have been blocking free passage of U-N aid, though one convoy did make it through this morning.
Getting enough humanitarian aid into Bihac to stop the population from starving has always required diplomacy and patience.
But now the UN's patience is running out.
These trucks took three days to reach the besieged enclave, delayed first by Serb checkpoints and then by renegade Muslim forces.
The journey is only one hundred kilometres.
Convoy leader Mick Davis believes the situation in the Bihac region is now critical.
SOUNDBITE:
"Ultimately if they can't get food, logically, they will suffer and die. One story that did come out was that before when this happened in October they went out from the town in Bihac to the countryside to take food from relatives. That source, that supply now has run out. Even the people in the country have run out of food so its a double problem. Both the people in the farms and the people in the town have no food"
SUPER CAPTION: Mick Davis, Convoy leader.
The U-N's ultimate sanction is to stop supplying aid to the needy on the Serb and rebel Muslim side.
SOUNDBITE:
"If we are faced with a situation in which we have no negotiating room any more with those who control access and there's going to be a humanitarian tragedy we may, of course, be compelled to resort to more drastic solutions"
SUPER CAPTION: Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, U-N-H-C-R.
A further convoy did make it into Bihac today, but the fear now is that it may be too little too late.
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