'Terrible day' for Gorazde as shells rain down: Croats flee from villages ransacked in new Muslim land-grab as Serbian forces allow UN into besieged town

UN military observers entered the besieged Muslim town of Gorazde yesterday after 91 people were reported killed on what a local radio reporter called the town's 'most terrible day.'

A UN spokesman said the eight- man team of observers had seen 'considerable destruction' in the town. They reported that anti-aircraft artillery was being used as ground fire and that there was sporadic sniper fire.

Bosnian Muslim-controlled radio said 91 people were killed and 152 wounded in Serb artillery and multiple rocket launcher attacks on Gorazde yesterday.

'This is possibly the most terrible day. Life here is impossible, has lost all meaning,' the radio quoted its correspondent in Gorazde as saying.

The UN observer team, under a Serb military escort, left Sarajevo yesterday for Gorazde after gaining permission to enter the enclave from the Bosnian Serb army commander General Ratko Mladic.

Until yesterday Bosnian Serbs had refused to allow them into the the UN-designated 'safe haven' where hundreds have been reported killed in the Serbs' three-week offensive.

In central Bosnia, a second Croatian town, Kakanj, was overrun by Muslim forces yesterday, in violation of a ceasefire brokered on Tuesday by the United Nations. Up to 12,000 Croats fled to Vares, a small neighbouring Croat-held town with few supplies.

Muslims overran Travnik, the largest town in the region, last week. In Sarajevo, a UN spokesman confirmed that advancing Muslims ransacked Croat villages in the area. The latest Muslim offensive leaves Bosnian Croats with only a string of precariously positioned towns in central Bosnia, running along a road from Novi Travnik through Busovaca and Vitez to Kiseljak, on the outskirts of Sarajevo. All these towns are directly threatened by the Muslim offensive and under more or less permanent attack. Vares, further north, is encircled on three sides by Muslims and looks unlikely to prove a long-term haven for Croats fleeing Kakanj.

Bosnia's Muslim commander, Rasim Delic, said the offensive was a response to 'provocations' - an unconvincing explanation. The Muslim strategy is to compensate for huge territorial losses to the Serbs by grabbing land off militarily weaker and less numerous Croats. Their long-term aim is to encircle Bosnian Serb forces, who are throttling Sarajevo, and unblock a road to the Bosnian capital.

The effort to reach Gorazde was the first test of Tuesday's wide-ranging ceasefire signed by the military commanders of Bosnia's three warring factions. It followed nearly a month of UN efforts to establish monitors in the region, the last Muslim-held stronghold in eastern Bosnia and one of six UN-designated 'safe areas' to protect Muslims.

Although the countrywide truce does not take effect until noon tomorrow, a separate accord signed by Gen Mladic promised the UN access to Gorazde yesterday. Gen Mladic, in a 'special order', told Bosnian Serb forces to give 'free passage through all check points' and to permit the UN monitors to 'establish themselves inside and around Gorazde.'

The humanitarian aid airlift to the capital remained suspended yesterday after anti-aircraft radar 'locked on' to an incoming flight on Tuesday.

(Photograph omitted)