Muslims make harrowing exodus

the victims of ethnic cleansing by Serb forces in Bosnia. It is a rare

eyewitness account of such a convoy in a remote part of Bosnia.

Gustincic has covered the war since its outset and he has written

extensively about the crisis.

WITH only the moon and stars to light their way, the Muslims trudged

through pools of blood and over chunks of human flesh as a battle raged

nearby in the wild mountains of central Bosnia.

The stream of 1500 people dragged itself down the road in silence.

Babies and small children were quiet as though aware of the danger and

the Serb fighters only 200 metres away.

The march to Travnik was the final stretch of a 16-hour odyssey for

the Muslims of Sanski Most, expelled from their homes by the Serbian

campaign of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

We walked over mortar craters, our shoes sticking to the congealed

blood splashed all over the road and stumbling over the mangled remains

of people killed earlier in the day.

The only sound aside from the wheezing of the old and the clomping of

peasant shoes was from rockets which lit up the sky when they hit their

targets in the surrounding hills and the thunder of heavy machinegun

fire.

''We don't know where we are going,'' said a young man called Ferudin,

who only minutes ago had been confident and comforting to the others.

''We could be walking into a village under fire.''

He turned to a cluster of people who had stopped to rest and said:

''If you don't put out those cigarettes they will see you and kill

you.'' He then said quietly ''We could be on the wrong road. I can't let

my people perish in these hills.''

It was well past midnight on Tuesday night, rapidly becoming Wednesday

morning. Our destination after being expelled on foot into no man's land

by Serb fighters was the town of Travnik.

But no-one knew the way or how far there was to go.

''It's only three kilometres,'' a man said as much to reassure himself

as his wife. Many kilometres later he said ''It's about 10 more

kilometres, don't worry.''

The road was strewn with rocks and belongings such as baby shoes and

socks. ''They're carrying too much,'' said Ferudin. ''But it's all they

have left.''

Earlier that afternoon two other journalists and I had come upon the

convoy of 55 cars, five buses and several trucks under Serb guard about

one kilometre south-east of Prijedor, just after a turning for the

notorious Omarska detention camp.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has refused to

co-operate with Serbian ethnic cleansing and allow Muslims to be driven

out into UN-patrolled zones in Croatia to the north.

But this convoy showed that Serb militias have simply changed the

route and are shipping the Muslims southwards to Travnik through rugged

and untamed country.

Since the war began, more than 25,000 people have been brought to

Travnik along this route and the town is filled to bursting point with

refugees.

''We don't think the UN should participate in ethnic cleansing,'' said

Haso Ribo, commander of the Bosnian forces in the town. ''But this puts

us in a delicate position as we have to save our compatriots from

genocide.''

''We heard about this convoy on the radio last week,'' said Senad, an

auto mechanic leaving with his family. ''We were told we would be taken

to Travnik, then to Split and Germany.''

We joined the line of cars piled high with parcels and buses and

trucks crammed with people which at times extended for over 20km through

the fertile northern Bosnian farmland.

While paramilitary Serb militia supervised, local policemen from

Sanski Most were unhappy about driving out their Muslim neighbours.

''You could say they are leaving voluntarily, under the

circumstances,'' one policeman said.

We drove through dense forests where the sun only penetrated in

individual shafts of light and along ridges that dropped sheer into

valleys of thick mountain pine.

Armed men populated the woods and would materialise suddenly as we

drove by. Clearings had artillery positions in them and the entire area

was swarming with Serb fighters.

Truckloads of Serb irregulars -- bearded, often toothless, heavily

armed and sweating profusely -- passed by and grunted insults as night

fell and uncertainty spread among the Muslims.

Anxiety turned to barely suppressed terror in Vitovlje, the last

village before the Serb front lines, an isolated community high on the

Vlasic plateau.

Under a crimson sky, crone-like old women smoked pipes and looked on

impassively as swaggering youths with holsters and bandoliers

criss-crossing their chests clustered in groups.

''We'll butcher you,'' they shouted at the Muslims, making horizontal

swipes with their hands to indicate killing.

The convoy moved again. The next stop was the Serbian frontline.

In a nightmarish scene, illuminated only at times by car lights,

uniformed Serbs herded the Muslims out of their vehicles and sent them

on foot into no man's land carrying what they could.

All but seven of the cars were taken, driven off into the night by the

young men armed with sub-machineguns.

As our car was not taken, my colleagues and I led the trek through

three kilometres of no man's land with a flashlight and a white shirt

raised as a flag until we reached a mountain of rocks in the road which

was the Bosnian front line.

Now almost indistinguishable shapes in the night, the Bosnians

clambered over the rocks. Men passed silent babies to one another over

the mound. A crippled old man hung on to his son who carried him over on

his back.

Startled sentries offered little help and the remainder of the 16km

trek to the Travnik suburb of Turbe was on foot in full sight of the

fighting and Serb snipers.

Once in Turbe, the exiled people were put on buses. The promise of

Split and Germany was a cruel lie. There was barely enough petrol for

the few remaining kilometres to Travnik.