A United Nations observer team headed for this war-torn capital Wednesday in hopes of securing the airport to allow relief flights to bring in desperately needed food and medicine.
Sarajevo quailed under another day of intense shelling. Officials said at least seven people were killed.The team of about 50 technical observers, led by Canadian Gen. Louis Mackenzie, left in a convoy of vehicles from Belgrade, the Serbian capital. The journey would take a few hours in peacetime.
"Their job will be to inspect the airport, and Gen. Mackenzie will first meet the representatives of all sides to try to restore the cease-fire" agreed to Friday, U.N. spokeswoman Barbara Shannon Boyd told The Associated Press in Belgrade.
She said the U.N. hopes the airport can be secured within 10 days.
Serb militias controlling the airport agreed Friday to allow relief flights to bring in food and medicine for the capital, but fighting in and around the city has intensified since then.
Sarajevo was shaken Wednesday by rounds from multiple-barrel rocket launchers and heavy artillery as Serbs and Muslim defenders traded fire. Flames consumed numerous buildings, including some in the old Turkish quarter of Bascarsija.
A general alert was in effect for the third consecutive day, and senior government officials took shelter in the basement of the Bosnian presidency building.
Sarajevo radio said the northern Bosnian town of Tuzla also was shelled by Serb gunners, who hit the city hospital several times.
Alija Mulaomerovic, the director of Sarajevo medical emergency services, said seven people were killed and 40 wounded in the capital overnight. He said ambulances drove through the city with lights off to avoid fire.
In a sign that the costs of the war are starting to weigh on Belgrade, the Serbian Red Cross began handing out free food to pensioners, jobless refugees and others impoverished by Serbia's economic crisis.