Word: convoy
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Ethnic Serbian crowds near the Bosnian town of Zvornik, 70 miles northeast of Sarajevo, block -- and eventually turn back -- a rescue convoy carrying the U.N. commander, General Philippe Morillon. The military procession was headed for the surrounded enclave of Srebrenica, where 15,000 Muslims await evacuation, thus far in vain. Despite a World Court ruling in Bosnia's favor against alleged aggression, and the debut slated this week of NATO warplanes to enforce what so far has been a meaningless ban on military flights above Bosnian territory, there remains scant international consensus to punish Serbia for refusing to recognize...
WHAT PASSING BELLS FOR those who die as cattle? Or for those who escape the slaughterhouse. They arrived packed into open-topped trucks, the lucky ones crushed painfully against the cold steel sides yet able to gulp down the winter air as the convoy of refugees crawled its way from the front-line Bosnian Muslim town of Srebrenica to the relative safety of Tuzla. The unlucky ones -- five small children and two women -- died on the journey, their lives pressed out in the tight huddle of frightened humanity...
...people packed into trucks designed to carry sacks of food. Some admitted to bribing army commanders to get on; others fought for places, pushing aside those too weak to retaliate. A little boy who survived a fall from one of the trucks en route ran screaming alongside the roaring convoy until a Serb army major hoisted him back on board. "When you see the refugees you only have to imagine what it's like for the people inside," said Simon Mardel, a British doctor who has witnessed the hunger and disease of Srebrenica. "They are fighting for their lives...
...standoff continued throughout the week. Serbian troops promised again to allow the convoy to proceed but each time halted it. In a radio message to his Sarajevo headquarters, Morillon termed the situation "unbearable" and said "people are dying right in front of me." On Friday, his frustration boiled over. He drove to the border and demanded an end to the stalling. He accepted Serbian terms that he travel without his escort of two Canadian armored personnel carriers and headed back to Srebrenica in his command car -- followed this time by the trucks of the relief convoy...
...taking his stand in the snow of eastern Bosnia, Morillon turned up the world spotlight brightly enough to force Serbian leaders to reconsider. They backed down under all the attention and let the stalled supply convoy enter Srebrenica. But food and medicine will not save the town or its people from being overrun and "ethnically cleansed." Like the humanitarian efforts of the West throughout the country, Morillon's intervention provides a momentary respite but does nothing to rescue Bosnia from the fate the Serbs have decided...