Bosnia's foreign minister and three colleagues were killed Sunday when rebel Serbs shot down their helicopter in a troubled northwestern pocket. In defiance of escalating global condemnation, the Serbs also seized more U.N. peacekeepers.
Croatian Serb forces said they downed the helicopter, the Croatian Serb news agency ISKRA reported. The United Nations said only that a missile hit the craft over positions held by Croatian Serbs.Serbs, confident U.N. hostages would shield them from a repeat of last week's NATO air raids on ammunition dumps, seized 33 more peacekeepers, all British, near Gorazde in eastern Bosnia. Five of the captured peacekeepers were later injured in a car accident, Bosnian Serb TV said.
By nightfall, the Serbs held 317 U.N. personnel, the U.N. said, including more than 200 mostly French peacekeepers surrounded near Sarajevo and 30 U.N. monitors, some of whom were chained to potential NATO targets.
As the Serbs upped the stakes, frustrated U.N. officials demanded their masters in the world's capitals tell them what to do: stand tough or back away in the most humiliating retreat of the United Nations' 50-year history.
"We hope that we will get some guidance and backing," said U.N. spokesman Alexander Ivanko. "A lot of thought will have to go into our next step, because it will probably be the most important step the international community makes in this century."
Bosnian Foreign Minister Irfan Ljubijankic, a 43-year-old Muslim, died when his helicopter was shot down as it flew over Croatian Serb positions near the beleaguered government-held enclave of Bihac, Bosnian officials and U.N. spokesman Maj. William Taylor said.
It came down in territory held by Croatian Serbs, 41/2 miles south of Cetingrad, just west of the Bosnian-Croatian border, Taylor said.
Ljubijankic was the most senior Bosnian government official killed in more than three years of war.
Also killed were an assistant justice minister, an official at Bosnia's Zagreb embassy, an aide to Ljubijankic and the helicopter crew, said Miranda Sidran of the Bosnian embassy in Zagreb, Croatia.
The Muslim-led government forces in Bihac are battling a diverse army of rebel Serbs from Bosnia and neighboring Croatia, as well as renegade Muslims who reject the Sarajevo government.
On Sunday, the Serbs also shot at NATO planes and lobbed 10 shells into the U.N. "safe area" of Tuzla, decapitating one man at a bus stop and wounding another. Tuzla, a northern government stronghold, was the site where 71 people were killed and 151 wounded by a Serb cluster bomb Thursday.
In Sarajevo, the Serbs who severed electricity and water supplies on Friday cut the natural gas supply too, government radio said. Without it, the city bakery could not bake the bread that serves as the staple food for most residents, government radio said.
But a standoff between Serbs and French peacekeepers in Sarajevo ended when the Serbs withdrew overnight for reasons not immediately clear. French marines resumed control of a disputed bridge.
Four Serbs captured by the French during the standoff remained in U.N. hands. Serb commander Gen. Ratko Mladic told the United Nations that detained peacekeepers would be treated better if the Serbs were freed by 6 p.m. Sunday, said U.N. spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Coward. They were not released.
Across Europe, Western leaders held various crisis meetings on the next step. No decisions were expected at least until NATO foreign ministers meet Tuesday in the Netherlands.