"We were awakened by a powerful blast and then the SFOR soldiers came in," Vitorka Starovlah told the Radio of Republika Srpska in the Serb-run half of Bosnia.

The priest, Jeremija Starovlah, and his 28-year old son, Aleksandar, were seriously injured during the raid.

"They pointed a gun at me and prevented me from approaching my husband and son. My husband was crying for help, while my son fell to the floor. He did not move or speak," she said.

"It was horrible, like in the worst horror movie," she said in trembling voice. "I just pray for them to survive, nothing else matters for me."

Some 40 US and British troops used explosives to blast their way into the priest's home near the Orthodox church in the Karadzic's wartime stronghold of Pale.

But they failed for the third time to nab Karadzic, now the most wanted Balkans wartime leader who has been charged with genocide by the UN war crimes court.

A hospital source in the northern town of Tuzla, where the two men were transferred by SFOR helicopter, said the priest and his son were being treated for "life threatening injuries".

"Both of them suffered head injuries and multiple contusions," Amra Odobasic a spokesman for the Tuzla hospital told AFP.

The priest has undergone surgery and is currently on a life-support machine, while the son is still undergoing surgery.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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