Скачать или смотреть BOSNIA: TUZLA: REFUGEES BLAME UN OFFICIAL FOR THEIR PLIGHT

(17 Jul 1995) Serbo Croat/Eng/French

A top United Nations official has been confronted by angry Bosnian refugees who blame the U-N for their plight.

The U-N High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, went to the makeshift camp at Tuzla on Monday to see the women and children forced to flee from Srebrenica.

She had to admit she felt helpless.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata went to assess the situation in Tuzla at first hand.

Ogata was given a tour of the camp site, where some 15-thousand homeless women, children and elderly men depend on the U-N for their survival.

The refugees were angry over the U.N.'s failure to protect them in Srebrenica, the supposed "safe haven".

For three years they said, the U-N. prevented them arming themselves to protect their enclave.

The city is now in the hands of their Bosnian Serb enemies.

SOUNDBITE Serbo-Croat:
"The U.N. has done nothing for three years!"

SUPER CAPTION: Refugee

But Ogata told APTV that she is now determined to do something for these people.

SOUNDBITE:
"Well we have to get these tents finished and take them to reception centres so that they will be safer and will be living in a more humane environment now that's my main concern right now. As far as this particular place is concerned. Very sad, very sad..but I have to say we were blocked. It's not as if we did not go there- we were blocked."

SUPER CAPTION Sadako Ogata, UNHCR Commissioner

The commissioner tried to explain that the U-N did try and help residents of Srebrenica after it had fallen.

But the U-N was prevented from entering by the Serbs.

The refugees didn't appear very interested in her excuses.

SOUNDBITE Serbo-Croat:
"The conditions here are unbearable- there are nine people living in this tent."

A group of refugees demonstrated at the U-N air base near the camp.

Slogans criticising the U-N and accusing it of complicity with genocide were written across dozens of banners.

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