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U.N. Worker Beaten by Serbs in Banja Luka 
SARAJEVO, July 5 (Reuters) - A U.N. worker was beaten by Serbs in the northern Bosnian town of Banja Luka on Thursday in a deliberate attempt to obstruct bus services between the country's ethnic communities, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday. "One of (our) staff members was jumped by a bunch of thugs -- roughed up, punched about," said Kris Janowski, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). "The man is actually dealing with the bus operation in Banja Luka. We see it as not coincidental. We see it as an attempt by the Bosnian Serb republic to intimidate our bus operation even further. So far we had been seeing just bureaucratic obstacles."
The UNHCR has been trying to run a bus service between the Serb stronghold of Banja Luka and the Muslim-Croat federation. Hardline separatist Serb authorities, who dislike any contact between and among Bosnia's Muslims, Croats and Serbs, have objected to the bus routes. Janowski also reported that Serb authorities in Banja Luka were failing to cooperate in allowing Muslims recently forcibly expelled from their homes to return. At least 52 Muslims were expelled from Banja Luka in June in a resurgence of a practice which led to an exodus of about 500,000 non-Serbs during the Bosnian war. "We have seen a complete hardening of the attitude of the local authorities in Banja Luka on our efforts to have the recently evicted Muslims reinstated in their homes," Janowski said. "The police and civilian authorities have not been showing up for meetings and have totally dropped the issue." The UNHCR has been working to help implement the Dayton peace agreement, which gave all Bosnians a theoretical right to freedom of movement and the right to return to homes from which they were displaced during the war. |
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