How 51 Kids Died

TELEVISION PICTURES HAVE KEPT THE AGONY OF Sarajevo before the world's eyes. But in many other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the war's victims are dying unseen. Amateur radio operators desperately broadcast news from Zepa, a small Muslim enclave in a Serb-controlled region 35 miles east of Sarajevo. Through the static, they reported that in one 24-hour period last week, 85 people, including 51 children, died from cold and hunger.

Zepa has been cut off from the rest of the country since fighting began 10 months ago, and the ham operators say its food supplies have run out. The town's original population was 8,000, but its facilities have been overwhelmed by the arrival of 20,000 refugees, and some are now living in caves.

After the radio messages were picked up in Belgrade, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees dispatched a truck convoy with an 80-ton relief shipment. But there was no certainty it would arrive, since earlier U.N. attempts to reach the town had been turned back by Serbian militiamen and mines on the snowy mountain roads. Officials said they were negotiating with the Serbs for permission to enter the area. Meanwhile, in a warm and comfortable hotel in Geneva, Bosnia's government tentatively agreed with Serb and Croat forces last Tuesday to establish a decentralized federation of 10 provinces. The complex plan would allow the Serbs to retain most of the Bosnian territory they have seized. (See related story on page 48.)