Bosnian Serbs Hold Monitor Staff Writer

DAVID ROHDE, a staff correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor in the former Yugoslavia, is being held by Bosnian Serb forces, according to a key informed source.

Mr. Rohde was detained after he drove alone into the Serb-held territory of Bosnia on Oct. 29.

"We are extremely concerned about Mr. Rohde's welfare and are actively trying to locate him and confirm his well-being," says a US State Department spokesman. "All indications are that Mr. Rohde was traveling in an area under the control of the Bosnian Serbs, and we hold them responsible for his safety."

Rohde was picked up in a "controlled area without authorization,'' according to the first source. No details were available on his condition or his exact location in Pale, the Bosnian Serb headquarters.

Efforts to locate him have been made by the Monitor, the United States government, the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and colleagues of Rohde.

Based in Zagreb and Sarajevo for the last year, Rohde is the only Western journalist to have visited one of the mass grave sites near the fallen UN "safe area" of Srebrenica.

Rohde traveled to the eastern Bosnian villages of Bratunac and Nova Kasaba and found evidence confirming US charges that a massacre of Bosnian Muslims had occurred. Rohde followed up his original Aug. 18 story with the first Muslim eyewitness accounts of the massacres and a story about the Dutch UN peacekeepers who evacuated Srebrenica in July.