BOSNIANS are dying again as a result of inter ethnic violence, threatening the country's fragile peace process and leaving the international community without a clear response.
Two Bosnians were killed and as many as 10 others wounded on Monday when an attempt by Muslim refugees to visit relatives' graves in Serb controlled territory went wrong.
Witnesses reported two Muslim men were shot dead by Serb gunmen in an angry confrontation. Others were wounded when they fled the scene in panic and entered a minefield.
The incident was the latest in a series of attempts by refugees and displaced persons to return to their places of origin across the inter entity boundary line separating Bosnia's Muslim Croat federation from its Serb republic.
Monday's deaths were the first in post war Bosnia resulting from hostilities since January when a sniper opened fire on a tram in Sarajevo, but they came as no great surprise.
"Since there is no practical plan to deal with the return of refugees and displaced persons that would give them any satisfaction, violence and deaths were inevitable" said an aid worker with long experience in Bosnia.
"The miracle is it didn't happen sooner. The international community's approach is to negotiate returns. That gives hard liners the power to manipulate the process and block movements. The Serbs are past masters from UN days."
Rationing visits to family graves and former homes through negotiations is intended to build confidence on both sides of the inter entity boundary line as a prelude to actual returns. Instead, the tedious and often inconclusive process is only inflaming passions.
Freedom of movement and the right of refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes are written into the Dayton peace accord which ended the 43 month Bosnian war last year.
Unless those rights are realised on the ground, de facto partition of the country along ethnic lines is inevitable. Country wide elections scheduled for mid September under Dayton would become a farce.