ENVIRONMENT-YUGOSLAVIA: Depleted Uranium Scare Spreads In The Balkans

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jan 10 2001 (IPS) - Apart from being a symbol of bloody wars during the past decade, the Balkans continue to gain notoriety in the history of warfare.

This time it is the death, from leukemia, among soldiers from European countries that served in peace missions in the zone – a phenomenon that has already been dubbed the “Balkan Syndrome”.

Eighteen soldiers from European countries died of leukemia after serving in peace operations in the Balkans. It is believed that the exposure to depleted uranium (DU), from spent ammunition fired by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), led to deaths of seven Italians, five Belgians, two Dutch, two Spaniards, a Portuguese and a Czech.

They all served in peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Kosovo. International troops came to Bosnia in 1995, after the three year war ended there. The international peacekeeping mission in the UN-run southern Serbian province of Kosovo started in June 1999, following 11 weeks of NATO air raids against Serbia.

NATO used some 31,000 shells capped with DU in the 1999 air raids, mostly in Kosovo and in southern Serbia. NATO used similar weapons in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. At the time, territories held by Bosnian Serbs were targeted by DU ordnance.

Shells capped with DU make bullets or missiles denser, so that they can cut through armour. The material gives off relatively low levels of radiation, but can be dangerous if ingested, inhaled in dust or if it enters the body through cuts or wounds, experts say. Once it enters the underground waters, it may enter the food chain. It is deposited in lungs, kidneys, bones or brains. The long exposure can provoke gene mutations, they add.

European countries are urging NATO to investigate the claims about deaths of peacekeepers. Top European bodies like the European Union and European Commission are to discuss the Balkan Syndrome later this week.

But Yugoslav and international experts warn that this is just the tip of the iceberg, as besides 50,000 peacekeepers, some 10 million people live in the area.

“It is too early to say what the consequences of the 1999 contamination in Serbia are,” says Dr Slobodan Cikaric of the Belgrade Institute for Oncology. “One must bear in mind the fact that radiation-related leukemia takes between two to five years to develop, while the time span for radiation – related cancers is up to 10 years”.

NATO’s use of armor-piercing DU shells in 1999 has left four areas in Serbia contaminated by radiation, Colonel Milan Zaric of army’s atomic and chemical warfare department said at a press conference in Belgrade.

The zones are at Serbia’s southern boundary with Kosovo – near the towns of Presevo, Bujanovac and Vranje.

“Measures have been taken to address this issue and some of these areas have been marked,” said Zaric. Around 100 people living near the suspect zones have undergone health checks but have not shown signs of illness related to uranium exposure, he added.

“It’s early to say anything now,” Dr Gordana Kostic from Health Centre in Vranje told IPS. “The possibility of larger number of radiation-related cancers can not be expected before years 2004 or 2005,” she added.

The UN-run Kosovo province is off the limits for Serbian authorities or the army, so no statistics on Kosovo can be obtained in Belgrade. Some 1,6 million people live in Kosovo.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that it has found no evidence of an increased leukemia risk in the province. But research continued after the head of a UN team which found DU at eight sites warned that landmine clearance could stir up toxic dust, and that children especially ran an increased radiation risk.

The team urged that the targeted sites be sealed off. But this had not yet happened, a spokesman for NATO-led peacekeepers confirmed to Belgrade media earlier this week.

Susan Manuel, spokeswoman for the UN administration, admitted that only last week the instructions for local population were prepared regarding contaminated sites in Kosovo.

“People will be warned to avoid those areas” she said. In her statement to Belgrade media, Manuel would not comment why it took more than 18 months for the international administration to tackle the problem.

Ecology experts in Serbia are highly critical of both Western and domestic behaviour regarding the use of DU weapons.

“It is simply not true that only Kosovo and southern Serbia were the targets of DU shells in 1999 NATO air raids” says ecology expert Dejan Dimov.

“NATO carried an experiment ‘in vivo’ against civilian population all over Serbia” Dimov added. “DU ordnance was used even here, in Belgrade. High levels of radiation were recorded around army headquarters, ministry of interior buildings, destroyed by NATO at the start of the air raids.”

All the locations are in densely populated residential areas of the capital, said Dimov. He said three bridges over the Danube river in northern Serbian town of Novi Sad were also destroyed by DU capped rockets.

“It’s a crime from all sides not to tell people what happened. In years to come, thousands of us will be patients that will have to be treated for cancer and everyone here and abroad will say that it is not their responsibility,” said Dimov.