Old and sick suffer as Bosnian winter claims first victims

SARAJEVO - The freezing cold of winter is beginning to claim lives in the besieged Bosnian capital and other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The elderly, the sick and the injured are the most vulnerable.

The number of those killed by the cold in Sarajevo is still low, but people already suffering from injuries or malnutrition are falling prey to pneumonia and other illnesses. Their chances of recovery are slim in hospitals which have no heating.

In Sarajevo's Kosevo hospital Enisa, 16, died not because of the burns she suffered in an accident but because of the cold in her room. A few weeks ago she was badly burnt when she tried to light a lamp with a mixture of petrol and a home-made product. Dr Borisa Starovic succeeded in grafting skin on to her legs and abdomen despite the atrocious conditions and lack of medicine in the hospital.' She was so kind, so courageous. Her life was not in danger because of her burns. It was the cold in her room which killed her,' the doctor said.

There is no heating in the maternity ward, where there are between 10 and 15 deliveries a day and as many abortions, and none in the operating theatres. The only place that is heated is a small area reserved for babies' incubators. The number of premature births has risen by 50 per cent since the Serbian siege of Sarajevo began more than eight months ago. Water is heated in the kitchen, but is cold by the time it reaches the delivery rooms, where there is no emergency oxygen. New-born babies are put into bed with their mothers so they can at least get some body-heat.

Mothers and their new babies are sent home within 15 to 24 hours of the birth. Before the war, they were kept in hospital for four days. Professor Sirecko Simic, head of the gynaecology and obstetrics department, said he had been told that some new-born babies had died of cold after going home.

Most buildings in Sarajevo have electric or gas heaters, but there has been no electricity in the city for more than two weeks and only some areas have a gas supply. Some people have oil heaters, but that fuel also ran out two weeks ago. Few people have a fireplace at home to build an open fire.

Elsewhere, eight old people have died of cold since Christmas at a home in the Sarajevo suburb of Nedzarici. A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said there were 114 people at the home and about 35 had died in recent weeks.