31 PEOPLE DIE FROM STARVATION IN BIHAC LAST WEEK

ZAGREB, Dec 2 (Hina) - About 25,000 people from the villages in the Bihac surroundings have been evacuated in the Bihac town since the Serb aggressors raided to the 'safe haven', Bosnia-Herzegovina's Embassy in Zagreb said in a statement last night. Now there are around 50,000 displaced people in the town, the statement read. The Bihac enclave is short of food supplies, and the last delivery of humanitarian aid was organized in June 1994. UN Protection Force, UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross dispatched merely about 6 kilograms of food per capita in the last seven months. All soup kitchens had to be closed two moths ago. Thirty-one civilians died from starvation last week, the statement stressed. More than 1,200 people were wounded in the past two weeks. The Bihac Hospital is the only appropriate institution for offering medical aid to the wounded. The Hospital is situated in the area exposed to the severest Serb assaults from Debeljaca and Vedro Polje. The patients have to be released from the hospital due to the lack of beds, and are lodged in private houses near it. The Bosnian officials fear that in the event Serbs capture the hospital they will kill all male patients in the same manner they had done after occupying the Croatian town of Vukovar. In the Bihac enclave 7 civilians were killed and more than 20 wounded yesterday. UNHCR is not planning any humanitarian convoy for Bihac for the time being, and other relief agencies are waiting for the situation to change, according to the statement. Several non-governmental organizations have initiated the "Urgent Aid for Bihac" action, and they are to send a convoy on 3 December, the statement concluded. (hina) mms 021053 MET dec 94