Bosnian Serbs followed through Monday on their threat to block aid convoys into Sarajevo, and a top U.S. official went to Croatia to try to prevent a spring war.
Snipers killed a 60-year-old man in his garden on the southern outskirts of Sarajevo on the fifth straight day of sniping in the Bosnian capital.The Serbs said they would ban land convoys into Sarajevo for a week to press demands for a larger share of aid. Air supplies, which account for about 50 percent of the city's needs, were not affected.
The Serbs want 38 percent of the supplies, up from the 23 percent they get now, said Kris Janowski of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
"We think they are already getting their fair share," Janowski said.
In neighboring Croatia, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard C. Holbrooke was trying to persuade President Franjo Tudjman to withdraw his threat to evict 12,000 U.N. peacekeepers when their mandate expires March 31.
Such a departure is likely to touch off fresh fighting between Croats and rebel Serbs as they grab territory vacated by the U.N. peacekeepers who have kept an uneasy three-year truce. The Serbs hold just under one-third of Croatia.
U.S. Defense Secretary William C. Perry met his British, French and German counterparts over the weekend to discuss a general U.N. pullout from Croatia and Bosnia, if necessary.
Both the Serbs and Bosnia's Muslim-led government have said they will fight again if peace talks do not resume by May 1. But diplomacy is getting nowhere more than halfway through a four-month truce.
Morgue officials in Sarajevo said Ramo Husic, 60, was shot dead in his garden by a sniper Monday morning.