1 With starvation looming in a besieged part of northwestern Bosnia, a U.N. aid agency said Monday it will try to bring acutely needed food through an alternate route.
2 Heavy fighting in the so-called Bihac pocket and intransigence by besieging forces have prevented the agency from sending regular convoys to civilians now totally dependent on outside aid.
3 The food situation is 'extremely critical,' said Kris Janowski of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. 'The word starvation is now appropriate.'
4 Representatives of the Bosnian government and rebel Serbs agreed Sunday on opening new routes for humanitarian aid via the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Banja Luka, southeast of the Bihac enclave.
5 The UNHCR planned to try sending a convoy via that route Tuesday. Previously, convoys have come through Serb-held territory in Croatia and had to pass through a part of the Bihac pocket controlled by rebel Muslims. Both groups, allies of Bosnian Serbs, have halted convoys at will.
6 Heavy fighting raged around Bihac town, a U.N.-declared 'safe area,' on Friday and Saturday, but was quieter Sunday, U.N. officials said.
7 Continued fighting there has confounded U.N. efforts to secure a truce that took effect with the new year.
8 The U.N. commander in Bosnia, Lt. Gen. Rupert Smith, failed to persuade the Bosnian government army chief, Gen. Rasim Delic, at a meeting Sunday to return to talks on consolidating the cease-fire. Delic said he would not return to talks while fighting in the Bihac area continues.
9 Smith was to meet Bosnian Serb commanders in their stronghold of Pale, east of Sarajevo, on Monday.
10 Serbs from Croatia and rebel Muslims controlling the northern part of the Bihac pocket around the town of Velika Kladusa, are not party to the truce, and have continued fighting Bosnian government forces. But the most recent fighting involved an offensive by Bosnian Serbs.
11 U.N. officials on Sunday, reported that about 1,000 Serb soldiers had crossed into the area from Croatia over the weekend.
12 To the east, U.N. officials reported sightings of planes near the airfield in government-held Tuzla.
13 U.N. spokesman Maj. Herve Gourmelon said U.N. military observers using night vision equipment had spotted three unidentified planes close to the airfield Sunday night. One was believed to be a Hercules cargo plane, and the others jet fighters.
14 'Last night we heard a lot of jetfighters flying over,' said Philip Jerichow, a U.N. spokesman reached at Tuzla airfield, but he had no other details.
15 It was the second time in three days that planes were spotted in the area.
16 U.N. officials said they had informed NATO, which monitors a no-fly zone imposed over Bosnia. But NATO spokeswoman Lt. Col. Janis Witt in Naples said the alliance had picked up nothing on radar.
17 In Sarajevo, UNHCR resumed the airlift which was suspended over the weekend. Bosnian Serbs had closed aid routes from the airport to the besieged Bosnian capital, and officials had in turn closed the airport because of lack of storage space.
18 Janowski said more space had been found, but the number of flights will be reduced.
19 In northern Bosnia, a session of the Bosnian Serbs' self-proclaimed assemby was expected to focus on rifts in the leadership.
20 Some deputies apparently want to mend ties with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. Under pressure of international sanctions, Milosevic last summer withdrew his support of Bosnian Serbs as punishment for their refusal to accept an international peace plan.
21 The Bosnian war began in April 1992, when Serbs rebelled againt a decision by the Muslim-Croat majority to secede from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. More than 200,000 people are dead or missing.

Heavy fighting in the so - called Bihac pocket and intransigence by besieging forces have prevented the agency from sending regular convoys to civilians now totally dependent on outside aid .
Heavy fighting in the so - called Bihac pocket
Why is there fighting going on in this region?