the horror of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

US lawyer Ms Feryal Gharahi, who has witnessed the trauma of Bosnian Moslems first-hand, issued her appeal during an emotional speech.

She asked residents to send letters to British Prime Minister John Major and US President Bill Clinton demanding action to protect victims of Serb atrocities.

"People say Serbia is not Nazi Germany. The victims do not appreciate the difference. In 1938 the world's reaction was apathy and silence. In 1993 it's the same.'' Ms Gharahi, vice-chairman of the US women's group Equality Now, went to Bosnia in February with Bianca Jagger, first wife of Rolling Stone Mick Jagger. She is speaking around the Island at the request of the local Amnesty International human rights group.

She told a Rotary lunch at the Princess in Hamilton: "Women are being raped and killed systematically, only because they are Moslem, as I am.

"Thousands of women have been raped, hundreds are pregnant as a result of rape. Everywhere I went in Bosnian and Croatian refugee camps men and women told me stories of abominations.'' Men had being raped, fathers had been forced to rape daughters and brothers had been forced to rape sisters.

In rape camps, set up by Serbs in warehouses, gyms or cafes, women were being gang-raped daily by soldiers.

"Rape and forced pregnancy are part of the Serbs' genocidal policy of ethnic cleansing, which is carried out under order.

"This is not a war, this is a genocide. The Serbian objective is broader than military victory, it is the obliteration of an entire people.'' Ms Gharahi said rape is being used to demoralise and humiliate, to destroy "the family structure and reproductive potential of an entire nation''. The Serbs' aim was to "exterminate all Moslems in the region''.

In one camp, she said, 200 people were sometimes executed in one night. In another, half-dead survivors of beatings were buried with those who had been killed.

Europe and America have been irresponsible in the face of Serbian atrocities, she added.

"The West is enforcing an arms embargo against the Bosnian Moslems only. They are putting the gunless before the Serbian guns and they have a responsibility to help these people.''