Winter's toll

Bitter cold and acute food shortages could take a toll of an estimated 30,000 Armenian lives if attempts to open relief corridors through Turkey and Georgia fail, warned President Levon Ter-Petrossian recently. Especially at risk in the nation of 3.5 million are thousands of refugees who fled the fighting in the mountainous Nagorno-Karabagh enclave.

Meanwhile, for the 350,000 people huddled in Sarajevo, their nine-month-old battle against death continues, though with winter setting in, freezing temperatures are likely to kill more people than Serb bullets. Desperate Sarajevo residents have begun pillaging what's left of their bomb-shelled city, hacking down every tree in sight and stripping shelled buildings of beams, roofing, flooring, wallpaper, foam insulation and anything else that will burn and provide them warmth.