British soldiers hoping to evacuate sick and wounded from an eastern Bosnian enclave were trapped Friday by desperate Muslim women and children and their Serb besiegers.

Equally beleaguered, Bosnia's Muslim-led government said it would accept an international peace plan with some reservations, and urged the immediate resumption of peace talks. Serbia's hard-line president agreed to press Bosnian Serbs to attend.The U.N. commander in Bosnia, Gen. Philippe Morillon, arrived late Thursday in Srebrenica, another eastern town, said Ron Redmond, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva.

Simon Mardell, a World Health Organization doctor who has been in Srebrenica, said in a report to UNHCR that 2,000 people have already died of hunger, cold and disease there and cases of tuberculosis, jaundice and scabies were rife.

Mardell left Srebrenica Wednesday and walked 15 miles northwest to Konjevic Polje, said Danielle Maillefer, WHO spokeswoman in Zagreb, Croatia.

Six U.S. Air Force C-130 transport planes dropped 40.4 tons of food and 1.4 tons of medical supplies over Srebrenica overnight, the U.S. military said Friday. U.S. officials said Srebrenica was a critical target.

The U.S. Air Force has airdropped 345.3 tons of food and 10 tons of medical supplies throughout eastern Bosnia since the missions began March 1.

Maj. Pepe Gallego, a spokesman for U.N. peacekeepers in Sarajevo, said the six British soldiers were trapped in the eastern enclave of Konjevic Polje, which they had reached Thursday.

The evacuation effort failed as the village came under renewed shelling, Muslims protested, and Serbs blocked the passage of two U.N. ambulances.

As many as 2,000 Muslim women and children blocked the Britons' road out of Konjevic Polje, protesting Serb demands that no men leave and wounded Muslim soldiers be treated at Serbian hospitals, said Peter Kessler, UNHCR spokesman in Zagreb.

Gallego said the desperate Muslims also demanded an immediate cease-fire and the permanent deployment of U.N. military observers in the war-battered town.

Gallego said Serb forces besieging Konjevic Polje also set new demands: that future U.N. aid convoys have no military escort; and that all Serb civilians and wounded soldiers be evacuated from Sarajevo.

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Ron Redmond, UNHCR spokesman in Geneva, told reporters that UNHCR workers en route to Konjevic Polje had reported passing deserted villages, some strewn with corpses.

"The trip in was rather frightening," he said.

At the edge of Konjevic Polje, Serb fighters refused to allow the two UNHCR ambulances to pass. But the British escort, aid and medical workers went in in light vehicles, Redmond said.

Redmond said UNHCR workers saw Serbian tanks on surrounding hills, their barrels trained on the village.

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