Leaders of the Muslim and Croat communities in Bosnia-Hercegovina have agreed on plans for the return of refugees to the southern city of Mostar, which is still divided between Muslim and Croat sections.

More than 200 homes on each side of the city are to be vacated for refugees returning in the coming weeks after being driven out during the Bosnian war.

Senior international officials who attended the meeting described the agreement on refugee returns as better than they had expeceted.

The BBC correspondent in the area, who was in the meeting, says international officials were particularly encouraged by a decision from the Muslim side to vacate more than 100 houses in the same district in order that Croat families can all return to the same neighbourhood.

Delegates also agreed to dismantle a number of separate Muslim and Croat institutions that still exist in the Federation.

UN: refugee returns unsafe

But in the north-west of Bosnia the United Nations has described the situation for returning refugees as unsafe.

UN spokesman Alex Ivanko: UN demands the suspension of town's police chief (0'53")

In the latest of a series of incidents, an elderly Serb couple, former refugees who only recently returned to the Croat-controlled town of Drvar, were shot dead.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR says 50 Serb houses in Drvar had been burned down in recent weeks.

About 1,500 Serbs have recently returned to their home town of Drvar which is now under the control of ethnic Croats.

Both Croats and Muslims criticised

The BBC correspondent says that, until recently, the focus of international criticism in Bosnia was the leadership of the Serb controlled part of the country. But with the election of a new moderate prime minister there, international attention is switching to Croat-dominated areas.

Senior international officials have been accusing the Bosnian Croat leadership of intransigence on a number of key points in the peace process. And they are tracing this policy back to Croatia itself and President Franjo Tudjman.

Croat police officers are accused of failing to respond properly to harassment of returning Muslim refugees.

The Bosnian Muslim side has been accused by the international officials of not doing enough to promote the return of Serb and Croat refugees to the capital.  
 

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