With NATO approval, Bosnian Serb army trucks and buses entered demilitarized areas of the capital Monday to pull out thousands of Serbs before Muslim-Croat federal authorities take control.
The vehicles left Lukavica Barracks on the outskirts of Sarajevo for the Serb-held suburbs of Vogosca, Ilijas and Rajlovac shortly after sunrise.Those and two other districts are to gradually come under federation control by March 19 under the Dayton peace accord.
By late morning, dozens of the vehicles were waiting to be loaded with the belongings of Serbs. And as Serbs moved out, others moved in - a bus from Sarajevo full of those who fled Vogosca at the start of the war arrived in the suburb around noon.
Some of those waiting to leave Vogosca said they had not been treated badly by the Muslim-Croat federation police that began patrols there Friday.
Returnees examined what remained of houses stripped bare by the departing Serbs.
"Even the windows are gone," said Bensad Heric who was expelled from Vogosca with his Serb wife, Slobodanka, in May 1992. "But we'll put it back into shape."
The Serbs are intent on getting as many of the Bosnian capital's 30,000 Serbs to leave as possible. NATO agreed to escort the refugee convoy even though a U.N. official's objections that the evacuation undermined efforts to restore Sarajevo as a peaceful, multiethnic city.
"The fewer Serbs remaining in Sarajevo, the worse it is for the efforts here to piece the country together again," said Kris Janowski, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Thousands of Bosnian Serbs already have fled Sarajevo, fearing retaliation by the Muslims and Croats whom the Serbs battled for 3 1/2 years.