CROATIAN OFFICE FOR REFUGEES CALLS FOR URGENT ASSISTANCE

ZAGREB, June 2 (Hina) - The Croatian government office for refugees sent a letter on Thursday to foreign diplomatic missions in Croatia and mass media, warning it ran out of resources for care of a growing number of refugees. "Once again we call on international organizations, governments and the entire international political community to stop ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina and assist the Croatian state in providing for about half a million refugees and displaced persons," the letter said. The Office warned two weeks ago that Serb authorities in western Bosnia had stepped up ethnic cleansing, a campaign they had been pursuing for the past two years in order to force out the non-Serbs. A growing number of non-Serb refugees keep pouring into Croatia from the northwestern Bosnian towns of Banja Luka, Prijedor, Kotor Varos, Prnjavor and Derventa. The latest convoy with 600 Moslems and Croatia entered Croatia at the UN-operated Dragalic checkpoint (UNPA West) near Nova Gradiska on May 31. "What is particularly concerning is that this convoy has again been organized by Bosnian Serb authorities through the Serb Red Cross, who literally deported those people," the letter said. Some of the people in the convoy had permits to enter or pass through Croatia, but there are indications that some were forged, the Office said. Most of the refugees managed to take with them only a few pieces of clothing, and about 200 of them asked the Office for assistance the next day. Most of them have been put up in the crowded refugee centre at Gasinci in eastern Croatia. The letter noted that neither the Office nor any international organization had been notified about the arrival of that convoy. The latest flood of refugees shows that the arrival of the remaining Croats and Moslems from that part of Bosnia could be expected soon as the ethnic cleansing campaign is drawing to an end, the Office concluded. 021443 MET jun 94