Gorazde tastes cola and peace

THREE year old Armin Sejdic fingers the blue plastic wheel on his new toy. It is a grinning Ronald McDonald driving a tractor. Armin got the hamburger merchandise in one of the stream of aid parcels that have reached Gorazde since Nato troops opened a route into the besieged town.

On the banks of the river Drina, his aunt explains that Armin was born in a wood. The Sejdic family lived there for two months, she says, after they were expelled from their village by Serb soldiers.

They came to Gorazde shortly afterwards and now they live on the ground floor of the local primary school.

The latest ceasefire, followed by the arrival of the Nato implementation Force (Ifor), means that Armin's aunt had her first taste of Coca Cola in years, she says.

The town disco, Pyrimid, has reopened in the last month, and the cafe's display their prized Pepsi cans on the shelves behind the counter.

Outside the Cafe Bonafide, a small speaker pipes tinny music into the street, where the tarmac is dotted with mortar splashes. it seems that every building is damaged, and many are destroyed.

The people of Gorazde line the streets and wave as the convoys of Ifor armoured cars, food trucks and journalists arrive.

New faces are still a novelty in the town that was virtually cut off from the outside world for almost two years.

Last Saturday, the first civilian bus, carrying 75 people, was escorted by French troops from Sarajevo to Gorazde.

It was an emotional reunion for many families and a blow to those whose relatives did not make it.

A spokesman for said the bus would be a weekly service, although it was not his organisation's brief to continue the escort indefinitely.

The most direct route from the town to Sarajevo is around 60km. The Ifor route is almost twice that. According to a French soldier, the eventual route along the Bosnian Muslim held corridor will take about a year to build.

Yesterday the crowds gathered outside the post office to scan the letters and parcels that had arrived with the latest convoy.

During the siege the only messages from the outside world came from the radios run on car batteries.

Relief is palpable in the town, but the graffiti on the road into it reflect the anger at the apparent failure to protect the enclave. "Die UN Killers", one reads.