Desperate to stave off Serb assaults on defenseless civilians, government troops seized U.N. peacekeepers' weapons and demanded their vehicles in two Muslim enclaves Saturday.
The Bosnian troops surrounded Ukrainian peacekeepers at two posts in Zepa, a U.N. "safe area" sheltering 16,000 civilians that suffered a second day of Serb shelling Saturday. The Ukrainians refused to give up their weapons and fired warning shots, said U.N. spokesman Alexander Ivanko.In the "safe area" of Gorazde, government troops seized U.N. vehicles and weapons and shot at other Ukrainian troops.
Bosnia's Muslim-led government is angry the world hasn't stopped the attacks aimed at overrunning "safe areas" - outposts of government control surrounded by rebel territory - in an attempt to create an uninterrupted swath of Serb lands across eastern Bosnia.
France has tried in vain to convince its allies to recapture Srebrenica, which fell this week in a humiliating defeat for U.N. forces, and to defend Zepa and Gorazde. Britain instead proposed more talks.
As many as 20,000 people were driven out of Srebrenica by the Serbs in a two-day deportation. Thousands more, many of them men, were taken to unknown destinations by the rebels.
As many as 15,000 people are missing, said the European Union commissioner for humanitarian affairs, Emma Bonino. She said she had received word that as many as 4,000 Muslim men were being held at a stadium north of Srebrenica.
"If you look at the camp here," she said at the airfield outside Tuzla, "there are men missing, but also the young women . . . We are most concerned about that."
The plight of refugees driven out of Srebrenica eased somewhat Saturday when the Muslim government housed 11,000 of them in the northern city of Tuzla. Another 5,400 others were staying in tents at an overcrowded U.N. airfield, sweltering in 92-degree temperatures.
"It's getting better," said Kris Janowski, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
The Serbs on Saturday released 55 Dutch peacekeepers captured in Srebrenica, the Dutch Defense Ministry said. The peacekeepers were bused out of Bosnia and taken to a hotel in the Serbian town of Novi Sad, witnesses said.
Another 20 Dutch support and medical personnel left Srebrenica Saturday for neighboring Croatia, the Dutch Defense Ministry said. While still in Bosnian Serb-held territory, they were robbed of a jeep, a tank, guns and other supplies, said Defense Ministry spokesman Lars Poppers.
A day after they gave government troops in the tiny mountain town of Zepa an ultimatum to surrender and begin evacuating the civilian population, Serbs shelled the enclave again Saturday and traded gunfire with government troops. But there was no U.N. confirmation of Bosnian radio reports that Serbs had launched infantry attacks.
The Serbs were not attacking U.N. troops there, and there were no reports of peacekeepers firing back, said a U.N. spokesman, Rida Ettarashany.
But he said lightly armed government troops, who have pledged to defend Zepa inany way possible, fired at the U.N. compound. In the enclave of Gorazde, they seized five armored vehicles and some weapons from Ukrainian peacekeepers, he said.
Government troops fired machine guns and grenades at the Ukrainian camp, said U.N. spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Coward. Fire broke out in a barracks that was hit.
Government troops prevented British peacekeepers from leaving their camp to assist the Ukrainians, Coward said.
The assault on Zepa began just three days after the Serbs dealt the United Nations its most humiliating defeat of the 3-year-old war by seizing Srebrenica, the first "safe area" created by the United Nations to protect civilians from the fighting.
The U.N. commander in Bosnia, Lt. Gen. Rupert Smith, wrote to Bosnian Serb commander Gen. Ratko Mladic warning that further offensives in eastern Bosnia would draw more condemnation and isolation.
Smith said NATO airpower remained an option. Last minute airstrikes against Serb tanks failed to halt the Serb sweep through Srebrenica.
Coward, the U.N. spokesman, was more outspoken. To save eastern Bosnia, he told Cable News Network, "you've got to be prepared to go to war with the Bosnian Serbs."
In Zagreb, Croatia's foreign minister, Mate Granic, said Croatia and Bosnia should join forces in response to a growing Serb military threat.
Granic said Croatian President Franjo Tudjman would meet Bosnia's president, Alija Izetbegovic, within 10 days to decide strategy against rebel Serbs and how to handle U.N. peacekeepers.
Granic's announcement signaled that the war could spread if U.N. peacekeepers withdraw.
Senior commanders from France, Britain and the United States were to meet Sunday in London. France said it would bring plans to bolster the protection of Gorazde and Sarajevo.
Gorazde, with some 60,000 residents and 300 peacekeepers, most from Britain, is better-defended than Zepa and would be harder for the Serbs to capture. If it fell, refugees would likely be pushed toward already underfed and besieged Sarajevo, creating a humanitarian disaster.
At talks with Russian envoy Vitaly Churkin on Friday, Bosnian Serbs promised to release all Dutch peacekeepers soon. Hundreds remain surrounded at their base in Srebrenica.
In the past the Serbs have only made such promises in exchange for some concession. Over 370 U.N. hostages taken after NATO air strikes in May were freed after the Serbs reportedly won assurances of no more bombing.
That pledge was broken with Tuesday's last minute NATO raids around Srebrenica.
Churkin and European Union negotiator Karl Bildt were meeting the region's power broker, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Saturday. Thorvald Stoltenberg, the U.N. envoy now responsible for Bosnia, and Yasushi Akashi, the U.N. envoy for former Yugoslavia, also met Milosevic Saturday.