NINE ILLEGAL IRANIAN EMIGREES DROWN IN SAVA RIVER

SARAJEVO, Aug 29 (Hina) - At least nine Iranian nationals drowned on Monday night in the Sava River while trying to illegally cross the border between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, U.N. officials confirmed in Sarajevo on Tuesday. Douglas Coffman, spokesman for the U.N. Mission in Sarajevo, told reporters a large group of Iranian citizens tried to cross the border in two boats, of which one overturned. According to information available to the U.N., there were about ten persons in the boat, including women and children. Only one person survived and that person reported the accident to the local police in Bosanski Brod, Coffman said. According to the same source, the Croatian police have arrested emigrees who managed to cross the Sava in the other boat. Croatian and Bosnian police forces are conducting a search on both banks of the Sava in an operation to discover possible survivors or their bodies. The Iranians had arrived in Bosnia-Herzegovina on Monday aboard a regular Istanbul-Sarajevo flight. Coffman recalled that a similar tragedy had happened in May when a group of Iranian emigrees drowned in the Sava. The head of the U.N. Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jacques Paul Klein, said recently in the Sarajevo weekly 'Ljiljan' that at least 6,000 illegal emigrees were entering Bosnia-Herzegovina every week. After entering Bosnia, all emigrees try to cross over into Croatia and further into some of West-European countries. Problems caused by illegal immigration and smuggling of humans are aggravated by the fact that there are about 430 border crossings on Bosnia-Herzegovina's border, of which most do not have an effective control system. (hina) rml