PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
SIEGE OF SARAJEVO (13 July 1993)

That this House notes with grave concern that Sarajevo has been under siege for 15 months and that its people are living in atrocious conditions, including having to boil up sewage water for drinking water as there is no fuel to operate the pumps that could clean the water due to the Serb paramilitaries' refusal to allow United Nations fuel convoys through to the city; further notes that surgeons cannot wash their hands before performing operations, that the first cases of typhus have been reported and that the World Health Organisation is predicting imminent epidemics of typhus, dysentery and cholera; believes that the United Nations has the authority to lift the siege of Sarajevo; urges urgent action to lift the siege and save a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural community which has so far resisted ethnic division and which symbolises the values of the United Nations Charter; and welcomes the decision of the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly to hand in its appeal for action to lift the siege to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street, at 10 a.m. on 15th July, along with samples of untreated sewage water, as a reminder of the atrocious conditions in which the people of Sarajevo are forced to exist.

Sponsored by:
Mr Harry Barnes (Labour)