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UN holds back on uranium warnings

This article is more than 23 years old
No radiation risk, says official, as fears spread in Kosovo over legacy of bombing

Special report: depleted uranium

The United Nations is resisting calls to protect children and other civilians in Kosovo from the potential health risks from depleted uranium left by British and American shells in contravention of its own expert advice.

On a hastily arranged trip designed to play down growing alarm in Nato countries, Bernard Kouchner, who heads the UN administration in the war torn territory, went to western Kosovo yesterday where most of the Nato shells were fired. He told reporters there was no radiation and he saw no immediate necessity to cordon off sites thought to be contaminated by the heavy metal.

His remarks flew in the face of recommendations from a panel of experts from the UN's own environment programme last autumn that all possible depleted uranium sites be sealed off from public access. On Monday the World Health Organisation also warned that depleted uranium was of potential danger to children in particular playing in contaminated areas.

As Dr Kouchner toured the site of a Nato air strike in the town of Klina, Italian soldiers equipped with white overalls and Geiger counters surveyed the wreckage of a destroyed Yugoslav tank and two armoured personnel carriers. He said no radiation had been detected.

"It might be better to close it because of all the tanks and all the holes, but I trust the soldiers. They are very precise and they did it several times." He added that the UN had not received any requests to close off the site off from the public.

Nearby Valmir Ademaj, 11, told reporters he and his friends had played inside the destroyed military vehicles and nobody had warned them not to go there. Beqir Rracaj, 74, said many people had taken parts of the tanks as souvenirs.

The potential danger from contamination by depleted uranium has been known to western governments for a long time. A month after Nato troops entered Kosovo Britain's government-funded national radiation protection board warned foreigners working in Kosovo, or visiting as journalists or aid staff, to keep clear of war-damaged Yugoslav vehicles.

"If access to potentially contaminated areas is deemed essential, advice should be sought from the Ministry of Defence or the Foreign Office on any protective measures required," it said in a warning posted on its website. But Britain and other western countries did not call for areas to be fenced off.

Most of the anxiety expressed in Nato countries has centred on the risk to their own citizens working as soldiers or police in Kosovo. Several cases of leukemia have prompted alarm. Britain and other countries are now starting a screening campaign for their nationals.

The team from the UN environment programme, which visited 11 potential depleted uranium sites last autumn, is due to publish its findings in February. In the meantime, it said, "where there is an apparent risk of contamination, signs should be put up to forbid public access".

Ironically, the Yugoslav government has taken more precautions since the war than Nato or the UN. It says it marked the eight sites in southern Serbia where up to 5,000 Nato shells landed. It has had no access since the war to the 100 sites in Kosovo where shells fell.

Slobodan Milosevic's government said use of depleted uranium shells "adds a new dimension to the crime Nato perpetrated against the Yugoslav people". The new western-backed government of Vojislav Kostunica has not repudiated this harsh language.

Zoran Stankovic of the Belgrade Military Academy hospital told a Belgrade newspaper this week that about 10% of uranium 238 turns on impact into toxic oxides, and 70% into aerosols, which are often more dangerous than radiation.

He warned that serious lung, kidney and bone disorders caused by toxic uranium particles inhaled or otherwise introduced in the body - with contaminated food or drink - could be expected in Yugoslavia.

The Serbian ecology minister, Dragan Veselinovic, said last week there was a danger of Nato bombs and radioactive ammunition "threatening to turn into live uranium and enter the food chain".

Pleurat Sejdiu, joint head of Kosovo's health department, dismissed the concern as propaganda. "People trust the Nato experts not to harm the population," he said.

Ibrahim Rugova, leader of Kosovo's biggest party, said yesterday that the depleted uranium scare in the Balkans was being misused by those who opposed Nato intervention in Kosovo in the hope that it would lead to withdrawal of the Nato-led peacekeeping force.

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