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FIGHTING ERUPS IN BOSNIA

Croats being expelled

from homes by Serbs: UN

ZAGREB: Serbs who fled Croatia following the defeat of their rebel Krajina enclave are now forcing ethnic Croats out of their homes in Serb-held Bosnia and Serbia itself, the U.N. refugee agency said on Saturday.

"This is a knock-on effect which we expected and which is happening now," U.N. spokesman Chris Janowski said.

"In the Banja Luka region there are a lot of expulsions of ethnic Croats from their houses and there is a constant stream of people coming to our Banja Luka office telling us they have been expelled," he told Sky television.

Banja Luka is a major Serb-held town in northern Bosnia and is on the route taken by tens of thousands of Serb refugees who fled Croatia after an army offensive launched last week.

"The Roman Catholic Church estimates that as many as 1,000 (Croatian) families may have been expelled and that means thousands of people have been expelled," Janowski added.

He said there was also a wave of expulsions in the northwestern Vojvodina region of Serbia proper "where ethnic Croats, indigenous inhabitiants of that region, are being expelled by the newly arrived Krajina Serbs".

More than 150,000 ethnic Serbs fled Croatia after the army offensive recaptured the Krajina region in a three-day blitz.

U.N. special envoy Yasushi Akashi said the United Nations condemns any kind of expulsion or ejection of ethnic minorities or communities.

Asked if he would make a formal complaint about the expulsions, he said: "I will see, depending on the scope of the expulsions involved. We do not have an exact estimate."

Croatia protested to Serbia on Friday about attacks on ethnic Croats and expulsions.

The United Nations has made no progress in its efforts to inspect sites in Serb-held Bosnia where thousands of executed Moslems may be buried, U.N. special envoy Yasushi Akashi said on Saturday.

"We have not made any progress but we will be urging them (Bosnian Serb authorities) to allow our observers to go there as soon as possible," Akashi told Reuters in Zagreb.

The United Nations is demanding immediate access to areas of eastern Bosnia where 6,000 Moslems are missing and U.S. aerial photographs indicate separatist Serbs may have dug a mass grave, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday.

SARAJEVO: Heavy fighting erupted in central Bosnia on Saturday as government forces surged north from Bugojno towards the Serb-held town of Donji Vakuf, U.N. officials said.

"We've had been about 1,300 (heavy weapons) detonations in the first three to four hours of fighting this morning beginning about dawn," U.N. spokesman Major Greg Thompson said from Gornji Vakuf.

"We've been expecting an attack to develop in that area for the last month or so and it looks like the offensive has finally begun. There has been a significant BiH (Bosnian government army) buildup...I would say thousands of troops are involved."

Bosnian army and allied Bosnian Croat militia forces captured Kupres, west of Bugojno, from separatist Serb soldiers last November, marking the first time government troops had retaken a major town from their opponents.

Bugojno is held by government troops and Donji Vakuf to the north is in Serb hands.

A likely goal of the government offensive would be to seize Donji Vakuf and the main road linking Bugojno with Travnik, which runs through it.

Thompson said U.N. information about the attack has been limited by severe restrictions on the movement of peacekeepers, who were being kept well away from confrontation lines and barred from a key highway in the area.

But he suggested Bosnian army troops were attacking from Bugojno and from Komar hill northeast of Bugojno which had been reinforced by government soldiers brought down from Mount Vlasic, outside the town of Travnik.

"We suspect HVO (Bosnian Croat militia) forces are helping out from Kupres to the west but we don't know for certain," Thompson said.

Saturday's attack marks the first major offensive effort on the part of the Bosnian army since a coordinated push against Serb forces in the Sarajevo area fizzled out in June with minimal gains.

"I would say the significance of the offensive depends on how far they go beyond Donji Vakuf, if they get it," Major Thompson told Reuters.

"Taking Donji Vakuf would give them a better road but would be of local significance only. If they were to go on to Jajce, that would be something else. It would correspond with the old 51:49 (partition) plan."-Reuter