By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, Jan 16 2001 (IPS)

The public should learn more about the health hazards caused by the depleted uranium (DU) capped weapons used in the bombing of serbia by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1999, experts say.

“NATO air raids caused an ecological catastrophe in the broader sense,” says university professor Dusan Reljin.

Reljin teaches chemistry in Serbia’s second city Novi Sad, 74 kilometres north of the capital Belgrade.

Novi Sad was a frequent target of NATO attacks. It is widely believed that three of its major bridges over Danube river were destroyed by DU capped shells. Besides, 18 reservoirs of Novi Sad refinery, full of petrol, were hit in waves of NATO air raids. Hundreds of tonnes of both crude oil and petroleum went into the soil, while black clouds hung over the town for weeks on.

“Besides DU, so many other toxic chemicals are in the soil, water and air around us,” Reljin warns. “It is hard to say how and when we’ll get rid of them”.

From Mar 24-June 8, 1999, at least 23 petrochemical plants, oil refineries and fuel depots in Yugoslavia were bombed, as well as at least 121 major industrial plants containing various chemicals and substances dangerous to human health.

NATO used its air power on Serbia to punish former president Slobodan Milosevic for repressing ethnic Albanian minority in Kosovo province.

Unlike what NATO reports claimed at the time, most of the sites that were hit were close to or within the densely populated areas. NATO claimed it was strictly bombing military targets.

“To the experts it looks like Serbia was part of a NATO ecological experiment”, says Simon Djarmati, university professor from Vojvodina.

“We are now the testing ground for consequences of the substantial pollution. But, the pollution knows nothing about boundaries and the countries around us have reasons to worry too,” he adds.

Djarmati says thousands of tonnes of highly toxic chemicals were uncontrollably released into the air, soil and water in Serbia and most probably entered the food chain. Via Danube and other rivers or through underground waters they may surface in Romania, Bulgaria, down to the Black Sea, he says.

The Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and Serbian experts carried joint research projects in the hardest hit parts of Serbia immediately after the air raids ended.

They found that the worst hit areas were in and around the towns of Pancevo, 15 kilometres northeast of Belgrade and also on Danube river, Novi Sad, Nis and Kragujevac.

They also found that more than 100,000 tonnes of different substances were released into the atmosphere where they burned for days and later polluted the ground and water.

“The preliminary analyses showed that there were grounds for many concerns and serious worries about environment and health problems of population”, Pekka Haavisto, head of UNEP Balkans programme told IPS in August 1999.

“Our warnings were the same then and remain the same now”, Dr Slobodan Tosovic of regional Belgrade Institute for Health told IPS this week. “This calls for an overall ecological research with a view on long-term consequences in the area”.

In Pancevo, a fertiliser plant, petrochemical complex and oil refinery were hit several times. All three plants are situated within an eight square kilometres region and within hundreds of metres of residential buildings.

Eight tonnes of mercury went into Danube river after the fertiliser plant at Pancevo was hit. They were accompanied by two tonnes of ethylene dichloride, a strong cancerogene, that was released into the atmosphere and into the Danube after the same target was hit for several days in a row, experts claim.

Severe and continuous NATO bombing of power stations and transformers all over Serbia in May 1999 released the highly dangerous pollutant, PCB Pyralene, experts warn.

PCBs, man-made organic substances used in transformer oils, are known to cause skin and liver cancer and male sterility. PCB poisoning can be passed from mother to child by breast-feeding. Traces of PCBs are still existent in the town of Kragujevac, Serbian experts working with UNEP confirmed to IPS. A car factory and a power station were destroyed by NATO there.

In the southern Serbian town of Nis, a transformer factory was targeted several times. The analyses of ground samples show that traces of mercury, PCB Pyralene and asbestos still remain in the environment.

Due to its good arable soil and traditionally low level use of fertilisers, Serbia counted on being an exporter of healthy food in its future economic revival, after 10 years of slowed-down economy under Milosevic.

“Chances are now slim for that sort of business”, says Zaharije Trnavcevic, an agriculture expert.

“The latest discoveries have scared both the public and farmers who produce food. It will take much more than pure words to convince both that everything is OK. We already have reports from (former Yugoslav republic) Macedonia that the authorities there have introduced strict control of food imported from Serbia. This calls for a serious approach to the problem if we want healthy food both for us and others”, Trnavcevic adds.

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