SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Heavy fighting shattered the calm of Sarajevo and its suburbs Wednesday, with Serbs in the hills around the city trading artillery, tank and mortar fire with the town's Muslim-led defenders.
"This is all-out war," said Adnen Abdul Rezek, who is in charge of civilian affairs for the United Nations in Bosnia's capital.He said fighting raged across the western part of the city, which has been besieged for 21/2 months by Serb militants who oppose Bosnia's secession from Yugoslavia.
No firm casualty figures were available. Croatian radio said at least six people had been killed and 44 wounded in Bosnia since Tuesday evening.
The rattle of machine-gun fire began late Tuesday around the burned-out shell of the parliament building, breaking a cease-fire that had somewhat stilled fighting in Sarajevo since early Monday.
Then, near dawn Wednesday, heavy shelling thundered through the city center.
Rezek said U.N. military experts identified tank fire, large-caliber artillery, mortars and multibarrel rocket launchers in the barrage of fire.
It was not clear who fired first or why.
But troops loyal to Bosnia's government, officially allied with Croatia's forces since Tuesday, have been advancing outside Sarajevo, and the Croats have moved in on previous Serb gains in Herzegovina.
Serbs from the Lukavica barracks in the west of the city fired tank guns near the city's airport, which U.N. officials have been trying to open for relief flights to bring food to the 300,000 Muslims, Croats and Serbs left in Sarajevo.
Serbs on Trebivici hill also rained fire on the ethnically mixed suburb of Hrasno.
The United Nations signed an agreement with the Serbs almost two weeks ago to reopen the airport. But fighting has not stopped to allow the United Nations to send in hundreds of peacekeeping soldiers to secure the airfield.
Bosnia's defense minister, Jerko Doko, released a letter to U.N. officials Wednesday expressing "bitterness and concern" that U.N. officers watched passively as shelling occurred near the airport.
The fighting subsided temporarily about 8:30 a.m., and residents ventured out to scrounge for food. Stalls at the city market offered only dandelion and nettle leaves, with just one vendor touting the rare prize of radishes.
The air was filled with the stench of garbage, which has piled up in the streets during the siege.
Zeljko Visaha, 32, a worker at the gas company, said he had little faith in the truce agreement.