FEDERAL POLICE TAKE OVER DESERTED GRBAVICA DISTRICT

By Ranko Mavrak SARAJEVO, March 19 (Hina) - The Sarajevo district of Grbavica was eerily deserted on early Tuesday morning before its transfer to Bosnian Moslem-Croat Federation control. Only a few people could be seen in the streets before federal police arrived to complete the reunification of Sarajevo under the US-sponsored Dayton peace agreement. An elderly man standing by the Brotherhood and Unity Bridge, which had become a line of separation during the war between the Bosnian government and rebel Serb forces, said he had not expected to live to see this day. "My wife and I have remained to live here. Our son and daughter left when the war started and are now in Canada. I witnessed the liberation of Sarajevo on 6 April 1945 but this day seems even more important to me," said Milan Kovacevic, a Serb. "In the last two days Italian troops and (international) civilian police have helped us whenever we turned to them," said Emina Hrabao, a retired physician who made it through the war alone after he husband had died. "I've never thought about my ethnic background but from now on I think I'll be a Moslem to spite those who did this to us and who tried to drive me away," Hrabao said. As dawn was breaking, evidence of arson and looting could be seen everywhere. Most houses appeared deserted, only a few faces could be seen from windows of high-rise buildings, peeping behind the curtains. All of a sudden a boy turned up on a bicycle, playing alone. The hilly Vraca neighbourhood has been without electric power for five days because Serbs dismantled all power substations and took away the equipment. The neighbourhood also had no water because all the main valves of the water supply system had been left open and the water was flowing out. Pieces of furniture lay scattered around buildings and articles of clothing, hastily thrown out of apartments, hung from trees. "I think about 1,500 people have remained here. It's hard to tell their nationality," UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said. Janowski added that the deployment of federal police in Grbavica had been organized much better than in Ilidza so that it was reasonable to expect that earlier incidents would not recur. Eighteen Grbavica residents stayed in a UNHCR shelter overnight for fear of thugs and looters, he said. (hina) 191904 MET mar 96