1992 After the secessionist Serb
Republic of Serbian Krajina was proclaimed in 1991 on the west, the inhabitants of Bihać were prevented from crossing into that territory. Additionally, after
Bosnian Serbs proclaimed the
Republika Srpska in 1992 to the east, the communities of Bihać, Bosanska Krupa, Cazin, and Velika Kladuša found themselves surrounded on both sides. The two Serbian armies cooperated to capture the Bosniak pocket in the middle of them. It was blockaded and bombarded by the Serbian forces starting on 12 June 1992. Consequently, the residents of Bihać were forced to live in shelters without electricity or a water supply, receiving only limited food relief. Famine would occasionally break out. The region had a mainly Bosniak population and, since the outbreak of armed conflict, had received some 35,000 displaced persons, most of them coming from Serb-controlled areas around
Banja Luka and
Sanski Most in the summer of 1992. In return, most of the Serbs, some 12,000 before the war, left Bihać for Banja Luka simultaneously.
1993 The designation of
Srebrenica as a safe area was extended on 6 May 1993 to include five other Bosnian towns: Sarajevo, Tuzla,
Žepa,
Goražde and
Bihać. The Bosnian President,
Alija Izetbegović, dismissed the concept. He said the havens would become death traps, where refugees, thinking they were safe, would instead become easy targets for Bosnian Serb forces. Bihać had few food convoys throughout the three years, with only the occasional airlift reaching the town's inhabitants. The wreckage of the bombing lay all around. Sandbags were piled high against houses, and
bunkers were dotted on street corners. Almost half the population was drafted into the Army to defend the area. Cars almost disappeared from the streets of what was once a relatively prosperous community. There was nowhere to go and little fuel. The post office was piled high with sandbags. Almost every telephone line had been cut since 1991. The journalist Marcus Tanner cynically commented how the Serbs from the 'UN protected' Krajina were shelling Bihać, a '
UN safe area'. By 1993, the enclave hosted 61,000 displaced or refugees from other parts of Bosnia, amounting to 27 percent of its entire population. The entire Bihać area had only one hospital that had exhausted the last of its food and medical reserves by December 1994, so that the feeding of the sick and wounded, more than 900 patients, was limited to one meal per day. Treatment was given only to the most desperate cases, whereas operations were being performed under local anesthesia. In this situation, without the necessary food and medicines, infectious diseases were spreading-
tuberculosis,
intestinal diseases,
hepatitis, and vitamin A deficiency. The hospital was no longer in a position to help the inhabitants of the area. The enclave was additionally weakened when rebel Bosniak forces led by
Fikret Abdić joined the Serbs in the fighting and created the
Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia in the north.
1994 after the war On June 2, 1994, the
5th Corps, under the command of
Atif Dudaković, overran and seized the territory of Western Bosnia and
Fikret Abdić fled to
Zagreb for safety. The battle was a huge success for the ARBiH, which was able to rout Abdić's forces and manage to push the Serb forces from Bihać and abolish Western Bosnia temporarily. On November 4, 1994, the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia was re-established after a Serb counterattack against the Bosnian forces. By 27 November 1994, advancing Serb forces had taken around a third of the zone. Fighting raged less than 500 yards from the Bihać hospital and moved closer to the headquarters of the Bosnian Fifth Corps. However, the
UN Security Council had failed to reach an agreement on a draft statement that would condemn the Serbs' shelling of and entry into Bihać and call for their withdrawal. The US plan to relieve the city was rejected by France and Britain. Bosnian-Serb forces first set a deadline of 19.00 GMT on 26 November for the town's defenders to surrender. They later amended this with a new offer for Bosnian-Muslim troops to surrender to
Fikret Abdić's forces. But the mayor of Bihać,
Hamdija Kabiljagić, rejected the surrender, saying "it would be the signal for mass slaughter by the Serbs". Bihać's citizens then proceeded to blockade the streets with trees and burned out cars. Since
Operation Deny Flight did not allow fighter jets to be used in Bosnia, the Army of the Republika Srpska took advantage of the ban by outsourcing air strikes to the Army of Srpska Krajina: they launched air strikes with aircraft based at a former
Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) military airport in
Udbina, south of Bihać, located in Croatian territory that was at the time controlled by the
Republic of Serbian Krajina. The Serb aircraft dropped
napalm and
cluster bombs. Although most of the ordnance came from old, unreliable stocks and failed to explode, the attacks were a clear violation of the no-fly zone.
NATO immediately looked for ways to respond, but its forces were not permitted to carry out operations in Croatian airspace, and due to Bihać's proximity to the border, Serb aircraft could attack into Bosnia, then cross back into Croatia before being intercepted. As such, NATO was powerless to stop the incursions. In recognition of the situation, the UNSC passed
Resolution 958, which allowed NATO aircraft to operate in Croatia. Under the cool leadership of the UNHCR Director of Logistics Operations, Peter Walsh, the refugee agency breached the blockade in December 1994 and got 100 tonnes of valuable food aid into the pocket. This was a difficult task hampered by persistent small arms and artillery fire, as well as unnecessary freedom of movement violations. The aid was delivered to Cazin for distribution throughout the region. The
United Nations Security Council Resolution 959 "expressed concern about the escalation in recent fighting in the Bihać pocket and the flow of refugees and displaced persons resulting from it" and condemned the "violation of the international border between the Republic of Croatia and the
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and demands that all parties and others concerned, and in particular the so-called Krajina Serb forces, fully respect the border and refrain from hostile acts across it".
1995 The enclave came under heavy tank and mortar fire again on 23 July 1995 in what UN officials described as "the most serious fighting in Bosnia in months". Thousands of rebel troops, backed by 100 tanks, attacked the Bosniak forces there. The United Nations General Assembly also addressed the issue: In 1995,
ARBiH launched a series of major offensives, including
Operation Sana, Operation Dawn and
Operation Triangle aimed at breaking the long-standing siege of the
Bihać pocket. These operations successfully pushed back
VRS and
SVK forces, liberated key territories in northwestern Bosnia, and linked the enclave with other government-held areas, significantly weakening the Serb hold in Krajina and shifting the momentum of the war. ==UNPROFOR in Bihać==