Two shells slammed into a small market in Sarajevo's Old Town Thursday, killing at least two people and wounding seven others.
The attack came a day before a nationwide cease-fire negotiated by Jimmy Carter was to go into effect - and two hours before the United Nation's top diplomat in Yugoslavia arrived for talks on implementing the truce."This is a brutal violation, and outrageous," said U.N. envoy Yashushi Akashi.
The shells landed in a market just behind the burned-out National Library and City Hall. Witnesses said one shell hit a shop and the other landed in a parking lot where residents earn money by selling personal belongings.
Large pools of blood could be seen in the fresh snow, as well as scattered clothes and tins of food.
There was no immediate word on who fired the shells, but the market is just below Mount Trebevic, which is held by Bosnian Serbs.
Hospital officials said two men were killed.
Police cordoned off the market and banned pedestrians from walking along the city's notorious "Sniper Alley" as of Friday.
At a different market in Sarajevo last February, a single shell killed 69 people. That attack prompted NATO to issue an ultimatum for Bosnian Serbs to move heavy weapons outside a 12.5-mile radius of Sarajevo or face airstrikes.