KNIN, Croatia A proud castle on a steep rock above Knin is a reminder of better days for this Croatian medieval capital which is now a city of beggars with an unemployment rate of 85 percent.

"We have 300 tons of food in storage, which should last for about 45 days, and after that we will have to go begging again," AFP quoted Petar Klaric, who heads the Roman Catholic charity Caritas in Knin as saying.

Caritas recently launched a public appeal for help for Knin's citizens, who are facing starvation after the economic collapse of the city.

"All the industry has closed down and now only beggars live here," said Klaric, adding that Caritas serves about 10,000 people whose most urgent need is simply food.

"There are some 35 international humanitarian organizations in Knin. But their donors are obviously not sympathetic enough since there is extremely high pressure on us."

During the 1991-95 Serbo-Croatian conflict, Knin was the stronghold of breakaway Serbs. But most of the city's 19,500 ethnic Serbs fled after the Croatian Army retook the territory in August 1995.

The practically deserted town soon became inhabited by Bosnian Croat refugees from central and northern parts of Bosnia.

Some 9,500 Bosnian Croats, now holding Croatian citizenship, now live in Knin and, along with about 8,000 ethnic Serb returnees, make up the majority of its population of some 21,000.

But, despite promises, there was no work for the refugees, and many left the town, heading for Western countries.

"They promised us so much, and we thought that life would be better here for us," said Dragan Miskovic, a 50-year-old Bosnian Croat who moved to Knin from the central Bosnian town of Travnik following a call from Croatia's late nationalist president Franjo Tudjman.

"Instead, my family has seen many days of fasting since we came here."

Dragan's eight-member family receives about 2,100 kunas (230 dollars) of welfare per month. According to figures from Croatia's trade unions, 5,000 Kunas are needed to cover the basic needs of a family of four.

But despite all their hardships, Dragan and his 35-year-old wife Ljubica do not want to return to their hometown, where Dragan worked as a taxi driver before the war, claiming that "life is even worse" in war-scarred Bosnia.

Dragan and many others accuse Croatia's reformist government of not doing enough to solve Knin's problems.

The authorities recently adopted a series of social measures, including food aid and an economic development program. But the government is frequently criticized for not having a strategy to solve the country's desperate economic and social problems, notably the unemployment rate, which officially stands at 22 percent.

After Knin's biggest metal factory closed down and several other state-owned firms stopped paying workers six months ago, the only available jobs are those in city public services and the railway, Deputy Mayor Ivo Jozinovic said.

"If the government does not soon create conditions for investment and renewed production in the state-owned firms, there will be no life here, neither for Croats nor for Serbs," Jozinovic said.