Sarajevo Aid Flights Stay on Hold Pending Probe of Plane Crash

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Sarajevo’s besieged people were cut off from food supplies from the outside world Saturday as the U.N. humanitarian airlift remained at a standstill following the crash of an Italian relief plane.

U.N. refugee officials halted relief flights into the Bosnian capital, encircled by Serbian militia, until U.N. investigators establish whether the plane was shot down.

In Zagreb, Croatia, a U.N. envoy said the top U.N. priority remains ensuring that relief supplies reach thousands of trapped civilians across Bosnia-Herzegovina.

But another U.N. official who did not want to be named said the food situation is dire. “We have almost nothing left,” the official said.

He said the halt to the airlift would particularly hit the poorest of Sarajevo’s 380,000 people, who cannot buy supplies on the black market with foreign currency and were almost totally reliant on aid donated by the world community.