The last remaining Jewish children in Sarajevo were evacuated from the war-stricken city Sunday night and have arrived in Split, Croatia, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee reported here.
The removal of the children from the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina came as Israel announced it was loading an air force transport plane with 16 tons of medicines and other relief supplies for dispatch to the region Tuesday.
The evacuation convoy of 55 persons, mostly children, took a “complex route” to reach safety, traveling by bus and several private vehicles, said JDC spokesman Amir Shaviv.
He said the operation involved “delicate negotiations with a number of militias and forces maintaining roadblocks” along the complex 186-mile route.
On arrival, the youngsters were placed in temporary shelters pending their transfer early this week to makeshift summer camps in the Split area.
Jewish Agency representatives are processing those whose families wish them to go on to Israel.
It is estimated that 400 adult Jews remain in Sarajevo. Those who wish to leave will be assisted by the JDC as part of its ongoing evacuation efforts in the war-torn area, the spokesman said.
Traveling aboard the Israeli air force aircraft, which will arrive first in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, will be Knesset member Yossi Sarid, coordinator of the Israeli relief effort.
Sarid, who failed in an attempt to reach Sarajevo last week, said he will seek permission to fly on to the Bosnian capital from Zagreb; if that is not possible, U.N. officials will be asked to transmit the supplies to their destination.
Supplies are about evenly divided between foodstuffs — mainly oil, flour and long-life milk — and medicine, medical supplies and blankets.
Israeli doctors and nurses will stay put for the time being. Israel has been informed that only food and medicine are required, rather than medical personnel.
AID ALSO PLANNED FOR SOMALIA
In Geneva, meanwhile, Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Lior said Israel was readying a fully equipped team of 10 doctors for Zagreb to administer aid to people in the war-stricken area.
Lior told a special meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission last Friday that an advance team had been sent to choose an appropriate site to station the medical unit, which would also be specially equipped to help amputees.
American Jewish organizations, meanwhile, have been pressing the U.S. government to do everything possible to halt the atrocities reportedly being perpetrated by the Serbs against Moslem and Croatian civilians in Bosnia.
The outpouring of concern was acknowledged by outgoing Secretary of State James Baker in a letter to Melvin Salberg, national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League, and Abraham Foxman, the agency’s national director.
“Your deep humanitarian concern,” Baker wrote, “once again demonstrates the ADL’s unwavering stand against assaults on the fundamental rights of all human beings.”
On another aid front, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin said Monday that arrangements are also being made to collect and send relief supplies to Somalia, where famine and fighting is taking a daily toll of thousands of Somalis, young and old.
Somalia is an African Moslem nation that is a member of the Arab League and is formally in a state of war with Israel. It is not known whether the Somali authorities will be ready to accept aid from the Jewish state.
In New York, American Jewish Congress President Robert Lifton issued a statement saying that “our deep distress” over the “terrible human tragedies taking place in Bosnia must not distract us from speaking out just as forcefully and just as loudly over the horrific situation now existing in Somalia.”
“Human suffering, wherever it occurs and whomever it touches, cries out for our attention and help,” he said.
(Contributing to this report were JTA correspondents Hugh Orgel in Tel Aviv and Tamar Levy in Geneva.)
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