DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: "CNN 20" today: U.N. troops held hostage in Bosnia.</s>UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More than 350 U.N. peacekeepers are being held hostage or surrounded in Bosnia with the threat of death hovering over their heads. And their fate has become a major concern. Their Bosnian-Serb captors, from the beginning, have sought to exploit the dramatically exploit the drama of the situation, releasing video pictures of the first hostages, chained to strategic buildings and other potential targets for NATO war planes. But the capture of 33 British troops angered the British government into ordering the dispatch of 6,000 reinforcements to Bosnia. In the face of international hostility, the Bosnian-Serb authorities promised to be more lenient in their treatment of their hostages. But U.N. officials questioned their sincerity. To back up their promises, the Bosnian Serbs released video pictures of relaxed British hostages and indicate that several of the men injured in a vehicle accident were being well-treated. The Bosnian-Serb authorities have further complicated the crisis by declaring that the hostages are prisoners of war and then offering to release all of them if NATO promises to stop all future airstrikes; a demand the Western allies refuse. Any accurate assessment of the condition of the hostages is impossible to make, however, because the Bosnian-Serb authorities have denied any access to them from any members of the international community.
CNN 20: Bosnian Serbs Seize U.N. Troops, May 30, 1995