- Title: BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA: SERB REFUGEES ON ROUTE FOR SERBIA
- Date: 13th August 1995
- Summary: PAVLOVICA BRIDGE AND BIJELJINA, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA/ PRIZREN, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA AND DUBROVNIK, CROATIA (AUGUST 13, 1995)(RTV - ACCESS ALL) PAVLOVICA BRIDGE, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA 1. GV/VARIOUS LINE OF REFUGEES AND THEIR VEHICLES WAITING TO CROSS BORDER (3 SHOTS) 0.15 2. GV/SLV BRIDGE WITH LINE OF CARS ON IT, REFUGEES(2 SHTOS) 0.23
- Embargoed: 28th August 1995 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PAVLOVICA BRIDGE AND BIJELJINA, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA/ PRIZREN, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA AND DUBROVNIK, CROATIA
- City:
- Country: Yugoslavia
- Reuters ID: LVA9EWR9PDQACV4XL0Z4Y8EJ882T
- Story Text: Serb men, fleeing from Croatia, were stopped from reaching safety in Serbia on Sunday (August 13), provoking rage and despair among wives and families who refused to go on without them.
Guards on the Bosnian side of the border refused to let any military-age men pass after mid-afternoon on Saturday and women who crossed the border for supplies described a sea of tractors stretching more than 20 km (12 miles).
Men, women and children were camped in and around their vehicles hoping for a change of policy after hearing news of the border blockade on local radio.
The sprawling column was the tail end of a mass exodus of 150,000 people who fled the Krajina region after the rebel enclave was defeated by the Croatian army last weekend.
Serbia said on Saturday no more Krajina men could enter and any already in the country would have to go back and join the Bosnian Serb army.
The ban on military-age males would remove a potential source of public disorder from disaffected men aggrieved that Serbia failed to come to the rescue of the Krajina Serbs and would boost the undermanned Bosnian Serb army, diplomats said.
In nearby Bijeljina, meanwhile, exhausted refugees sat near the railway lines waiting for transport out of Bosnia. Many had set up makeshift shelters and could be seen sorting belongings and cooking food.
About 600 Serbian refugees from Krajina were being settled into their new home in Kosovo on Sunday amid mounting hostility from the ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of Kosovo's population.
The refugees arrived one day earlier in the town of Prizren, just 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the border with Albania.
The refugees are being housed in a student hostel in the centre of town - luxury when compared with the sports halls and roadside shelters accommodating most refugees.
Foreign Affairs Secretary of the Democratic League of Kosovo, Edita Tahiri, an ethnic Albanian, said they considered the settling of Krajina refugees in Kosovo dangerous and said it could lead to open conflict, considering the "tense situation" in the area.
The hillsides around the coastal tourist resort of Dubrovnik were ablaze on Sunday after Bosnian Serb guns shelled the city in retaliation for the Croatian offensive on Krajina.
The Croatian city as been relatively peaceful during the last three years, but now is once again on a state of alert. The last of the few tourists who have been in the area during the summer months have disappeared.
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