February 23, 1996
Web posted at: 12:30 a.m. EST (0530 GMT)
VOGOSCA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (CNN) -- For the first time in more than three years, Bosnian government police were poised to enter Vogosca Friday after hordes of desperate Bosnian Serbs fled the Sarajevo suburb, unwilling to live under the control of a Muslim-Croat federation.
Scores of Muslim-Croat police were due to begin patrolling the northern industrial suburb of Vogosca at 6 a.m. EST (0500 GMT).
Hours before the hand-over, hundreds of Serb trucks and buses clogged the only route out of Vogosca as heavy snow pelted the area for the third straight day.
Serbs, unable to find transportation, loaded possessions on their backs and trekked through the wintry conditions, joining a growing trail of refugees in the chaotic exodus.
Meanwhile, Serb-induced flames engulfed shops, offices and homes in Vogosca -- a reminder of the Serbs' unwillingness to accept the imposed transfer of power. NATO troops and international police force officers could only watch. (315K QuickTime movie)
For Serbs in Vogosca, time is running out. The notion of waiting to see what happens after Friday's government handover is not something they're willing to consider.
And thus, they are taking off by road or foot, casting themselves into a difficult and uncertain future.
"What future? We haven't got one," cried one woman. "We don't know where to go or what to do next."
The status change for the Sarajevo suburbs will affect the lives of tens of thousands of Serbs in the weeks to come. In Vogosca -- the first suburb to be reunified with the Bosnian government --, the mayor anticipates only 800 of the 8,000 residents will remain.
International forces have tried to assure Serbs they have nothing to fear, but their calls have been ignored.
The "tragedy" of the situation is that the exodus is unnecessary, said Maj. Paul Brooks of the IFOR Information Campaign. IFOR is NATO's peace-keeping force.
"The people there are, of course, confused. They think that the federation police looks like a bunch of Mujahideen fighters, which is not true," said Alexander Ivanko with the International Police Task Force.
"When they see that the federation police are the same residents of Sarajevo that they are," Ivanko added, "then maybe the tension won't be as high as it is now."
The NATO-led peace force officially refused a Serb request to escort vehicles, saying it would violate the peace accord's provisions for free movement.
But Serb civilian vehicles in the suburb of Grbavica traveled behind NATO troops as they cleared roads of snow and conducted regular patrols, NATO spokesman Maj. Herve Gourmelon said.
Armored NATO vehicles drove ahead of seven Serb cars and trucks to the outskirts of the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Pale, east of Sarajevo. The NATO vehicles then turned around and drove back along a transit road through government territory into the Serb suburbs, followed by several dozen empty trucks.
"It may have the appearance of an escorted convoy, with Serb trucks or buses traveling in line with NATO vehicles, but it is not," Gourmelon said.
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