1 With diplomacy going nowhere, the United Nations focused Monday on feeding needy Bonsians: it reopened Sarajevo airport, and said it would try a new route to reach the famished northwest.
2 Officials of the U.N. aid agency, the U.N High Commissioner for Refugees, said food shortages were growing progressively worse in the so-called Bihac pocket in the northwest.
3 Shortages were 'extremely critical,' said spokesman Kris Janowski in Sarajevo. 'The word starvation is now appropriate.'
4 And Monique Tuffelli, UNHCR representative in the Bihac pocket, said the most vulnerable -- children, the elderly, women -- 'are on the verge of starvation.'
5 'We are receiving too little aid' for the tens of thousands of needy, she said. 'Most of the people in urban areas are really suffering from hunger.'
6 Fighting in northwest Bosnia and stubborn opposition by besieging forces have allowed only a trickle of the aid the area need.
7 One convoy reached the area late last week, but U.N. officials said they need daily deliveries to ensure people have enough to eat. Aid workers in the area said last week that lack of proper nutrition appeared to be contributing to some deaths in the Bihac hospital.
8 Serbs from Croatia and anti-government Muslims, both allied with Bosnian's rebel Serbs, are fighting the Bosnian government in the region and blocking the aid shipments from the north and west.
9 On Monday, the United Nations announced that Bosnian Serbs and their government foes had agreed that the United Nations could try to reach the Bihac area from Bosnian Serb-held territory to the east. The UNHCR planned to try that route Tuesday.
10 U.N. officials reported moderate shelling in three areas of northwest Bosnia on Monday: near the town of Bihac, a U.N.-declared safe area; Velika Kladusa in the far north; and Bosanska Krupa in the east.
11 U.N. officials in recent days have reported movement of around 1,000 Serb soldiers in the area. A U.N. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that a buildup of Serbs south of Bihac might be preparation for a new attack.
12 After a two-day suspension, the United Nations reported its airlift of humanitarian aid to Sarajevo was up and running smoothly. Up to 19 flights were scheduled to bring in as much as 200 tons of aid.
13 With Serbs promising not to block roads, peacekeepers would try to bring it into the city on Tuesday, Janowski said.
14 Serbs had blocked the roads after an ethnic Serb working for UNHCR was detained by the Bosnian government on suspicion of spying. The airlift had been shut down because of a lack of storage at the airport.
15 Efforts by mediators to build on a four-month truce agreement are getting nowhere. The U.N. is having equal difficulty trying to get opposing generals back to the bargaining table to strengthen the cease-fire.
16 The U.N. commander in Bosnia, Lt. Gen. Rupert Smith, failed Sunday to get the Bosnian government army chief, Gen. Rasim Delic, to return to talks.
17 On Monday, the Bosnian Serb commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, cancelled a meeting with Smith.
18 Elsewhere: --U.N. officials reported sightings of planes near the airfield in government-held Tuzla.
19 U.N. spokesman Maj. Herve Gourmelon said U.N. observers spotted three unidentified planes close to the airfield Sunday night. One was believed to be a Hercules cargo plane, and the others jetfighters.
20 It was the second time in three days that planes were spotted in the area.
21 U.N. officials said they had informed NATO, which monitors a no-fly zone imposed over Bosnia. But a NATO spokeswoman in Naples, Lt. Col. Janis Witt, said the alliance had picked up nothing on radar. --A war crimes tribunal in The Hague issued indictments for 21 Serbs suspected of crimes against humanity. Most of them were allegedly associated with the Serb camps in which Muslims were rounded up, harassed and killed in 1992. Only one of the suspects actually is in custody. --Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said he legally could not give anyone up to the Hague tribunal, but any suspected war criminals would be tried locally if evidence was presented.
22 Karadzic was attending a meeting of the Bosnian Serbs' self-proclaimed assemby, which was expected to focus on rifts in the leadership. Some deputies apparently want to mend ties with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who withdrew his support last summer.
23 Repeating that Bosnian Serbs want their own state no matter what, he said: 'If somebody wants us to vanish he has to . come to kill us.'

" We are receiving too little aid " for the tens of thousands of needy , she said . " Most of the people in urban areas are really suffering from hunger . "
" Most of the people in urban areas
Is the Bihac pocket in an urban area?