Intense Fighting in Sarajevo Shatters ‘Tranquillity Week’

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Intense machine-gun and mortar exchanges broke out around central Sarajevo on Sunday evening, only hours after the launch of a “Week of Tranquillity” for Bosnian children.

There was no immediate word on casualties, nor any indication of which side in the conflict had opened fire first.

Earlier, the commander of U.N. troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina angrily demanded an explanation from the Serbian side for a sudden blitzkrieg mounted a day earlier on Sarajevo in which at least nine people died and 111 were wounded.

French Gen. Philippe Morillon told the Serbs the barrage was “in direct violation of agreements reached by all sides leading to the eventual complete cease-fire in the Sarajevo area.”

The U.N. Children’s Fund had declared Sunday the first day of a “Week of Tranquillity” for Bosnian children.

Five UNICEF aid trucks arrived in Sarajevo in a symbolic start to a project the agency hopes will provide winter relief and vaccines for battle-scarred children.

But the new battles Sunday in Sarajevo showed how little such gestures count in the Bosnian conflict. And in another part of the country, a cameraman for the British Broadcast Corp. was killed when his vehicle was hit by mortar fire near the northeastern town of Travnik. Tihomir Tunukovic, a Croatian, was at least the 29th journalist killed covering Bosnia’s war.