315 Women and Children Leave Sarajevo : Balkans: U.N. troops escort the evacuees’ buses past Serb checkpoints in first such exodus.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — The United Nations escorted more than 300 women and children out of Sarajevo on Wednesday after the Bosnian capital’s warring factions gave their blessing to an exodus of civilians for the first time.

Wrenching themselves away from their relatives in emotional farewells in a city parking lot, the 315 women and children climbed into buses after waiting for five hours in sweltering heat and drove away from four months of fighting pitting Serbs against Muslims and Croats. Officials said all those evacuated were Muslims and Croats.

“It hurts very much to see them go but I must stay and fight,” said one young man with tears in his eyes as his wife and 2-year-old son boarded a bus.

Two U.N. armored personnel carriers, one ahead and one behind, escorted the buses safely up to the last Serbian checkpoint in the suburb of Ilidza near the city’s airport.

“There have been no incidents. We’re very satisfied with the way things have proceeded up to this point,” a U.N. spokesman said. Snipers killed two children during an unauthorized evacuation at the beginning of the month.

The buses were guaranteed safe passage through Serbian-held territory under an agreement reached Tuesday between Serbian forces and the Children’s Embassy charity in Sarajevo.

After passing through the Serbian-held territory west of Sarajevo, the evacuees were to spend the night in territory held by Bosnian defense forces northwest of the capital, officials said. They are then to proceed to the Croatian port of Split. From there, some go to Slovenia, others to Austria.

Meanwhile, the presidents of all six republics that used to make up Yugoslavia have agreed to attend a European Community peace conference Friday in Brussels, a British official said Wednesday.

EC mediator Lord Carrington, announced Tuesday that he had sent the invitations to the presidents of the six republics that formerly comprised Yugoslavia.

The British official said replies accepting the invitations have been received from Bosnia’s Alija Izetbegovic, Croatia’s Franjo Tudjman, Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic, Montenegro’s Milo Djukanovic, Macedonia’s Kiro Gligorov and Milan Kucan of Slovenia.

The official said Milosevic has agreed to attend bilateral meetings before the plenary session Friday afternoon. But it was not yet clear whether he would be staying for the afternoon meeting.

In Geneva, a U.S. official said Wednesday that Bosnian Serbs are moving prisoners out of detention camps to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from seeing the worst conditions.

“We want access to all of these supposed camps immediately and without impediment before these transfers of prisoners become more widespread,” said John Bolton, an assistant U.S. secretary of state.