Children, pity and politics: Major ignored warning on Bosnia's sick

THE GOVERNMENT was warned eight months ago that hospitals in the besieged city of Sarajevo were not getting essential supplies, according to a confidential report released yesterday by the Liberal Democrat leader, Paddy Ashdown. The report appears to contradict government claims that they were unaware of the medical crisis until the pictures of five-year-old Irma Hadzimuratovic appeared on television last Sunday.

The intervention by Mr Ashdown, a Privy Councillor, came as Mr Major came under attack in Britain and Bosnia for the accident-prone and highly publicised rescue mission to Sarajevo. Sylvana Foa, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, responded sharply to complaints from Downing Street that very few children were among the people listed for evacuation.

'Despite the fact that public opinion only wants 10-year-olds with blonde hair and blue eyes - and preferably adoptable - the British Government realises that the Bosnian doctors together with the UN doctors are identifying cases able to travel and who will benefit from the treatment,' she said.

'There are children among them but there are also adults whose families love and need them. Who is going to make these judgements? What about the man who is healthy himself, but whose tiny, baby son is outside Sarajevo and desperately needs his father as the donor for a bone marrow transplant? Is the father to stay behind because he's not a child? What about the mother of four children who is badly wounded and whose children need her to be restored to health? Should she maybe have pushed one of her children into the path of the grenade because they can be flown out and she can't? Come on, please.'

UNHCR pointed out that it had always said that its list of 41 patients in need of evacuation included adults as well as children. A detailed list of 13 cases publicised by the agency on Tuesday included a young man of 22 with leukaemia, a woman of 46 with a brain tumour and three men of military age with war wounds.

David Blunkett, Labour's health spokesman, called for a strategy to step up deliveries of vital medical and humanitarian aid to Sarajevo. He added: 'It has been a shambles. We have had three days of hyperactivity following months of inertia. The behaviour of the Prime Minister is making Britain look like a parish council compared to the rest of Europe. We are criticising everyone in sight because we have just discovered there is a problem in Sarajevo'.

Mr Ashdown catalogued for ministers the extent of the crisis in Sarajevo's hospitals as long ago as December. In his document, sent to Downing Street and the Foreign Office on December 17, the Liberal Democrat leader wrote: 'I find it almost impossible to understand why, after five months of aid, the Sarajevo hospitals are still without essential supplies. Neither hospital in the city has sufficient anti-biotics, general anaesthetic or even basic supplies of blood and plasma.'

Mr Ashdown was also highly critical of the Egyptian and Ukranian UN troops in Sarajevo who had no effective command structure as far as the Liberal Democrat leader, a former officer in the Special Boat Squadron, could see.

UN troops in Sarajevo were short of armour and 'at the mercy of Serb guns' while British forces in central Bosnia were 'in an extremely extended position' with exposed lines of supply. 'There is a military disaster on the UN side waiting to happen in Sarajevo,' he said. Mr Ashdown's office said that his report was just one of dozens the Prime Minister and Douglas Hurd had received from Bosnians, international monitors and the media on the state of Sarajevo.

Douglas Hogg, a Foreign Office minister, yesterday declined to comment saying that he had yet to receive a letter sent by Mr Ashdown on Thursday. However, the Foreign Office believes that press criticism of its lack of speed in organising evacuations is unfair since the media themselves have only just focused on the issue.

Downing Street yesterday attempted to dampen down the row with UN officials prompted by comments on Friday that Mr Major was 'upset' and 'fed up' about the small number of children among the 41 people earmarked to leave the country. A spokesman said: 'All we were saying is that we were surprised that after we were told half of the 41 cases were children we found that was not the case.' The Overseas Development Administration said last night that the airlift would start this afternoon, but did not disclose numbers or names of the wounded to be flown to London for emergency treatment.

Irma, who was flown to Britain on Monday, was still in a critical but stable condition in London's Great Ormond Street hospital last night.

(Photograph omitted)