SERBS RESUME EXPULSIONS OF CROATS, MOSLEMS FROM BANJA LUKA

SARAJEVO, March 4 (Hina) - Bosnian Serbs have recently resumed expulsions of Croats and Moslems from their homes in the Banja Luka area of northern Bosnia in violation of the US-sponsored Dayton peace agreement, UN spokesman Alexander Ivanko told a press conference in Sarajevo on Monday. International police forces deployed there registered 160 expulsion cases, Ivanko said, adding that the UN estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 Bosnian Croats and Moslems remained in the area. International police asked local Serb authorities to immediately put a stop to violence and expulsions but they continued despite verbal assurances from Serb officials, Ivanko said. The UN believed that this latest wave of ethnic cleansing had been triggered by the arrival of Serbs who had left Sarajevo suburbs. Kris Janowski, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UMHCR) in Sarajevo, said that Serbs who wished to stay in their homes in the Grbavica suburb were living in fear of gangs of robbers breaking into houses at night and taking all the valuables away. Those people were forced to barricade their houses and apartments because the local Serb police were doing nothing to prevent such raids, he added. According to UNHCR estimates, about 3,000 Serbs remained in Grbavica and about 10,000 in Ilidza, another Serb-held suburb that reverted to Moslem-Croat Federation control under the peace accord. Most of them had announced that they were leaving. Water supply to the Vogosca suburb had to be suspended for fear of flooding after the Serbs left their houses and apartments stripped of all installations. Janowski said that this problem could substantially slow down the process of return of Croats and Moslems to their homes. This week Federation authorities planned to return 3,500 refugees to Vogosca who had found shelter in government- controlled Sarajevo during the war. After that conditions would be created for the return of about 3,000 refugees from Vogosca currently in central Bosnia. About 400 refugees have so far returned to the Ilijas area which had a prewar population of 25,000. (hina) vm 041430 MET mar 96