The Bosnian capital settled in Friday for a tense Christmas after three days of heavy shelling and the failure of both peace talks and a truce accord.

The sound of shells exploding could be heard in the city, but there were fewer than on Thursday, when Bosnian radio said eight people were killed and 50 were wounded.There were reports of fighting in many of the trouble spots of western and central Bosnia as well.

Christmas truces among the Muslim-led government forces, Croats and Serbs were agreed on last week and affirmed Wednesday at EC-sponsored peace talks in Brussels, Belgium. The talks collapsed Thursday.

Bosnian Serbs and Croats had agreed on a division of land to settle the war, but the Muslim-led government rejected the plan.

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"On the ground, the Christmas spirit is singularly missing," Ray Wilkinson, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Sarajevo, said Thursday.

Sarajevo's bakery was short of flour and land convoys were being blocked, leaving only the tenuous airlift to supply the city.

UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond in Geneva said Croats had blocked aid convoys for central Bosnia coming from the Adriatic coast. A Croat spokesman said heavy fighting in the area forced the closure.

But late Thursday, Croatian television reported that Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban had rescinded the order to halt convoys.

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