UNHCR CONVOY EXPECTED IN MOSTAR TODAY

ZAGREB/SARAJEVO, Dec 29 (Hina) - A relief convoy with 100 tonnes of flour and other foodstuffs is expected to arrive in Mostar today, UNHCR spokesman Ray Wilkinson told reporters in Sarajevo on Wednesday. "An allegation that the eastern part of Mostar has not received humanitarian aid for 20 days is not true," said Wilkinson while commenting on a Sarajevo radio report that 55 thousand Moslems on the left bank of the River Neretva in Mostar were starving. The spokesman said four aid convoys had brought 257 tonnes of food to the Moslem side in Mostar by December 16. Reporting on the situation in east Mostar, Sarajevo radio said "a Mostar-bound convoy was turned away at the village of Buna on the orders of Croatia's Foreign Minister Mate Granic." The Croatian Foreign Ministry in Zagreb most resolutely denied the allegation, describing it as "completely false." "The Moslem side, too, is well acquainted with Minister Granic's views concerning humanitarian efforts," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ivana Moric in a telephone interview with Hina. UNHCR spokesman Wilkinson said no aid convoy had entered Mostar in the past ten days. "From December 16 to this day, UNHCR has had to suspend convoys to Mostar three times," said the UNHCR spokeswoman in Zagreb, Alemka Lisinski, specifying that at that time UNPROFOR had been involved in the evacuation of the wounded from Mostar because UNHCR trucks had been put at the disposal of an Italian relief agency and because UNHCR convoys from Jablanica had been delayed. UNHCR expects 100 tonnes of flour and other foodstuffs to be delivered to Mostar today, of which "52 tonnes are intended for the eastern, Moslem-held part and 48 tonnes for the western part of Mostar," said Lisinski. 291713 MET dec 93