Home Page
The United Nations says it has found radioactive contamination at sites in Kosovo where Nato aircraft fired weapons containing depleted uranium in 1998.
A spokesman said there was sufficient evidence to call for safety precautions when dealing with such locations.
The alarm was raised this week when Italy, France, Belgium and Portugal called for an urgent investigation into cases of leukaemia among soldiers who had served in Bosnia and Kosovo.
But Nato has denied that there is a health danger from depleted uranium, which is used to tip armour-piercing shells.
Radioactive 'souvenirs'
A team of UN scientists from several different countries visited 11 out of 112 Nato bombing sites in Kosovo.
At eight of the sites, they found either remnants of depleted uranium (DU) or evidence of increased radioactivity around the impact points left by the raids.
The head of the team, Pekka Haavisto told the BBC that a year-and-a-half after the Kosovo conflict they were surprised to find parts of DU weapons lying about in villages and graveyards where they could easily be picked up by children and adults.
"It can happen that children are playing in those areas, they pick up some remnants."
"Even adults were picking up some memoirs of the war and putting them in their rooms - and then you have a radioactive source," he said.
Mine risk
The UN says it cannot draw full conclusions from its work until detail analytical work is completed, but has warned that precautions should be taken near the sites, both for civilians and military personnel.
Mr Haavisto says that mine-clearance operations can expose people to serious health risks.
"If you explode mines in the areas where there is DU ammunition in the ground, you probably also explode again some DU ammunition and inhale this type of dust. So you cannot totally exclude the possibility that people can sometimes suffer serious health effects from this type of ammunition."
European Commission President Romano Prodi has said that if there was a risk to either military personnel or civilians then the weapons should be abolished.
Nato divided
The metal used in these weapons is only mildly radioactive, but on impact with a solid object it burns off in a spray of very fine dust, which some scientists believe can cause cancer.
However, the United States, Germany, the UK, Spain and Turkey, among other countries, say they have found no evidence of a link.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said that the US military had carried out extensive studies into the use of the weapons during the Gulf War, and had found no evidence of a cancer or other health risk.
The UK Ministry of Defence also rejected reports of any link, and Spain denied that any Spanish soldiers had been contaminated by radiation, despite the death of a former peacekeeper from leukaemia.
But other Nato allies are not so confident that the weapons are safe.
Italy, France, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Portugal are all looking into the deaths of former peacekeepers and are urging further investigation into the issue.
United Nations, Jan. 5 -- The United Nations announced today that it had
found evidence of radioactivity at 8 of 11 sites tested in Kosovo that were
struck by NATO ammunition with depleted uranium.
The discovery from the sampling of sites was a preliminary finding that
the United Nations Environmental Program reached at laboratories in
Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Britain and Austria.
"There is enough preliminary evidence to call for precautions when
dealing with used depleted uranium, or with sites where such ammunition
might be present," said a spokesman for the United Nations, Stéphane Dujarric.
NATO has come under pressure from several European governments over
claims that depleted uranium in NATO weapons caused death or illness
among peacekeeping troops in Kosovo.
The matter came under the spotlight after reports that six Italian soldiers
who served in the former Yugoslavia had developed leukemia and died
after exposure to spent ammunition.
Depleted uranium is used in the tips of missiles, shells and bullets to
increase their ability to penetrate armor and can be pulverized on impact
into a toxic radioactive dust, military experts say.
The German daily Taz reported today that United Nations tests had found
that some parts of the eight sites were "considerably contaminated." Its
report was a summation of an article set for publication on Saturday.
Uranium dust and unexploded munitions had been discovered, Taz said,
adding that it had obtained a copy of an interim report from the United
Nations agency dated Dec. 29.
A United Nations report in May had warned that much of Kosovo's water
could be so contaminated as to be unfit to drink, and that a cleanup of the
province could cost billions of dollars. It warned staff members not to
approach any target that might have been hit by a depleted uranium weapon.
American attack jets fired 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium ammunition
against Serbian targets during NATO's 1999 campaign to drive the
Yugoslav Army out of Kosovo. About 10,000 rounds were also fired in
Bosnia in 1994-95.
The 11 sites tested were among 112 in Kosovo hit by weapons containing
depleted uranium, according to a NATO map. The United Nations
Environmental Program considers the 11 sites tested representative of all
112 and wants them all cordoned off, the German paper said.
The report also recommended that health checks be carried out on
residents of the immediate area.
Mr. Dujarric said the United Nations team had taken 340 samples of soil,
water and vegetation at the 11 sites for analysis.
"Special attention is also being paid to the risks that uranium toxicity
might pose to the ground water around the sites," he said.
Depleted uranium (DU) shells, shadowed by accusations that they
contaminated western troops in the Gulf and Balkans, were engineered to
become the "silver bullet" in a gunner's armoury.
DU is the mildly radioactive byproduct left from the process to enrich
natural uranium oxide into nuclear fuel or a nuclear warhead.
Incredibly heavy for its size -- it is 1.7 times denser than lead -- the
metal is machined to make a projectile that can be fired from warplanes,
ships or tanks, with devastating effect against armour plating and
reinforced concrete.
Because of its great density, a DU round can slice through thicker,
tougher armour at greater ranges than any other long-range round -- and
in addition, it vaporises into a flaming gas on impact, often igniting
fuel or munitions. DU is also used to reinforce tank armour.
US tank forces in the 1991 Gulf War, the first time this ordnance was
used, were astonished at the ability of DU rounds to destroy Iraqi
targets, naming them "silver bullets," according to a Pentagon report
issued last month.
In one case, a US M1A1 Abrams tank was attacked at close range by three
Iraqi T-72 tanks, according to the report, an interim assessment on
environmental exposure to DU in the Gulf.
The Abrams was hit three times by Iraqi rounds, but the shells simply
bounced off its reinforced armour. In reply, the Abrams knocked out two
of the T-72s with DU rounds. The third tank took refuge behind a bank of
sand -- but was destroyed when the Abrams pumped a DU shell through the sand wall.
The US used more than 300 tonnes of DU munitions during the Gulf war and
at least 41,000 airborne rounds in Bosnia in 1994-5 and in the Kosovo
war in 1999, according to the Pentago and NATO's military headquarters.
Eight other countries also use DU.
Now, however, a shadow has fallen over the weapon, after an apparently
high incidence of cancer was reported among NATO troops stationed in the Balkans.
Among the questions: did these troops absorb dangerous particles,
through their lungs or skin, and if so, were these in sufficient levels to cause damage?
Uranium is both radioactive, lodging in the bone marrow, and toxic,
notably affecting the kidneys.
But DU defenders say the shells have a very low level of radioactivity,
being 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium, and 115 times
less than enriched uranium.
The US Department of Defense has funded or monitored numerous studies of
hundreds of US Gulf War veterans who were either exposed to DU particles
after their vehicle was hit by "friendly fire" or helped to clear up an
ordnance blaze in which DU shells caught fire.
"Based on data developed to date, we believe that while DU could pose a
chemical hazard at high intakes, Gulf War veterans did not experience
intakes high enough to affect their health," the December report says.
"Furthermore, the available evidence indicates that due to DU's
low-level radioactivity, adverse radiological health effects are not expected."
However, a separate review by the US National Academy of Science's
Institute of Medicine has said studies have been too narrow and of too
poor a quality to draw a firm conclusion.
In addition, some research using lab animals has raised questions about the long-term impact on health.
These were tests in which radioactive pellets were inserted in rats,
exposing them to DU particles at an identical level, weight for weight,
as a soldier with fragments imbedded in a "friendly fire" incident.
Several of these studies indicate possible damage to cells or genetic
mutation, but the authors say that more research on animals and humans
is needed to take these early findings further.
Nato should dispose of large fragments of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition remaining in Kosovo 18 months
after the conflict ended, because they represent an unnecessary risk to health, a UN study says.
Further details of the preliminary results of the UN Environment Programme investigation emerged yesterday
as the EU began an inquiry into whether there is a link between radioactive military debris and the death
from cancer of soldiers who served in the Balkans.
Meanwhile, the European commission president, Romano Prodi, called for DU-coated shells to be banned, after
the French defence ministry said that four French soldiers who served in the Balkans during Nato's
bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 were being treated for leukaemia in a military hospital.
"It is clear that if there is even a minimal risk, these arms must be abolished," he said. "And even if
this risk was not there, I don't like the idea of using these particular weapons".
Britain remains one of the few countries to resist compulsory screening of troops returning from Kosovo
for traces of contamination. The ministry of defence insisted that in its solid form was not a health
hazard. "The UN's initial findings were that there were a lot of other things which were of far greater
concern," a spokesman said.
Italy opened an inquiry last week into a possible link between DU and 30 cases of serious illness in troops
who served in the area, 12 of whom developed cancer. Five have already died of leukaemia.
The Campaign Against Depleted Uranium in Manchester says that most of the areas where DU shells were
dropped during the Kosovo war are in the south, in the Italian sector.
Spain said it would examine all the 32,000 soldiers who have served in the Balkans since 1992. Portugal,
Finland, Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece also plan to screen their peacekeepers and check radiation levels
to discover if there is such a condition as "Balkans syndrome".
The biologist leading the Royal Society's inquiry into the long-term effects of DU weapons, Professor Brian
Spratt of Oxford University, called on the government to test British troops.
"The leukaemia cases are probably not related, but the health of soldiers who go out to fight for their
country should be taken seriously," he said.
In its preliminary statement, the UN said it had found "slightly higher" radioactivity in Kosovo at eight of
the 11 sites examined last November. Nato had given details of 112 sites where an estimated 31,000 rounds
of armour-piercing DU ammunition were used during attacks on Serb targets.
A US army officer on the team, who helped develop DU ammunition, was apparently surprised to find that it
had not vapourised or dispersed.
The UN statement said that its scientists had found "either slightly higher amounts of Beta-radiation,
specifically at or around the holes left by DU ammunition, or remnants of ammunitions, such as sabots and penetrators".
The team collected seven DU outer casings and seven penetrators.
"It is an extra risk for the population, and that is something that military experts were surprised to
find," Pekka Haavisto, the Finnish head of the mission, said yesterday.
There is also concern about mine clearance, because most DU was found in heavily mined areas or sites with
unexploded ordinance - some of which is cleared by controlled explosions. The UN believes this can turn
DU back into its most dangerous form - a dust that can be inhaled.
A Canadian Forces veteran diagnosed with leukemia after serving in Bosnia urged Ottawa yesterday to join
the call for a NATO investigation into the use of depleted-uranium ammunition in the Balkans.
Reza Mehran, a former army major and surgeon, said Canada should join Italy, Belgium and Portugal in
urging the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to find out whether soldiers' deaths from leukemia are linked
to uranium in thousands of shells that alliance forces fired over the war-torn region.
Six Italian soldiers have died from leukemia after serving in Bosnia. Five Belgian troops and one from
Portugal have also died from suspicious causes, leading their governments to call for a NATO investigation.
"What is important is to find out how many people are sick and with what, and to find out where they were,"
Dr. Mehran, 39, said from his home in Ottawa.
But the Canadian Forces director of medical policy said there is no evidence that depleted uranium has
made Canadian peacekeepers sick, and no reason to widen a voluntary testing program for veterans.
In fact, Colonel Ken Scott, the doctor responsible for the depleted-uranium testing, said a comprehensive
program to test veterans for traces of uranium could itself raise the rate of anxiety-induced illness among
test subjects.
"Being concerned or worried can make you unwell," he said. [?!]
Depleted uranium, known as DU, is a high-density byproduct of the process used to make uranium fuel for
nuclear weapons and reactors. Shells and missiles containing it pack a stronger penetrating punch, and
it is used to strengthen armour plating.
Last month, NATO said U.S. planes fired 10,800 DU shells in Bosnia during 1994 and 1995 when the
alliance carried out several United Nations-sanctioned air strikes to punish Bosnian Serb forces for attacks
against civilians and peacekeepers.
NATO officials said the use of DU weapons was never a secret, but Italian Defence Minister Sergio Mattarella
later said Italy did not know they had been deployed.
The alliance has also acknowledged using DU ammunition during another Balkan campaign: its 1999 onslaught in Kosovo.
Captain Daryl Morrell, a spokesman for Canada's Department of National Defence, said he doesn't know
whether Canadian officials knew DU ammunition was being used in Bosnia.
Concern about exposure to DU surfaced after the 1991 Persian Gulf war, when thousands of U.S. veterans
reported unexplained health problems that became known as Gulf War syndrome.
More recently, Balkan syndrome fears have been expressed by veterans of UN peacekeeping missions in
Bosnia and Croatia, as well as by NATO forces that operated there.
Environmental scientists have said ingested uranium can seriously affect a person's health. But U.S. and
Canadian military officials have said that extensive studies show that uranium levels in the tissues of
veterans are no higher on average than among civilians, and that those veterans who do have
elevated levels show no abnormal illness rates.
Dr. Mehran is a former military surgical-hospital chief. He served with a UN force near Sarajevo in 1993
and a NATO force in northern Bosnia in 1996 for a total of nearly a year.
He was diagnosed with leukemia and bone cancer after falling ill overseas. The leukemia, or blood cancer,
is in remission and the bone cancer appears to be gone after a knee-replacement operation, he said.
He said he could have been exposed to uranium in fumes or dust, or in the blood of dead soldiers during
autopsies, but he doesn't know whether his illnesses are related to the radioactive element.
"It would be nice to know," he said.
But Col. Scott said a Canadian study of more than 6,000 Persian Gulf and Balkan veterans showed no abnormal illness rates.
SARAJEVO, Jan 5, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The health ministry of the Muslim-Croat half of Bosnia
announced Thursday that the number of cancer cases increased in 1999, but could not confirm if they were
caused by radioactive contamination due to depleted uranium shells used by NATO.
According to statistics 230 cancer cases were diagnosed among 100,000 Bosnians in 1999, while in 1998 the number was 152.
In the same year, there were 10.4 leukemia cases registered among 100,000 citizens, comparing to 6.24 diagnosed in 1998.
Following the reports on several deaths among peacekeepers who had served in Bosnia and Kosovo,
Health Minister Bozo Ljubic called a meeting of health and environmental protection institutions on Thursday.
The ministry expressed concern over the fact that the Bosnian authorities were not informed on use of
depleted uranium missiles during the 1995 NATO operations in the country at the end of 1992-1995 war,
a statement issued after the meeting said.
The ministry is to ask for a meeting with the NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) representatives, it added.
The health ministry said it lacked the adequate equipment for precise measuring of the radioactivity
in water and food, stressing that the increase of cancer cases was however "certainly" influenced by
risk factors of diet, smoking, alcoholism and pollution.
Six Italian soldiers, who served in the Balkans have died of leukemia, prompting Italy to demand NATO
investigation into the alleged effects of using depleted uranium munitions.
The European Union promised to take action over Nato's use of depleted-uranium munitions in the Balkans
yesterday, as Paris revealed that four French soldiers who served in the region were being treated for leukaemia.
Depleted-uranium munitions should be banned even if there was "minimal risk", said Romano Prodi, the
European Commission president, amid mounting international pressure on Nato to investigate the "Balkan Syndrome".
Sweden, which holds the EU presidency, backed calls for a new medical working group on the subject and
promised a discussion on the issue on 9 January. Bjorn von Sydow, the Swedish Defence Minister, said: "It is important that we act."
In Paris, Alain Richard, the Defence Minister, has asked for tests to determine whether the soldiers were
exposed to anything that might have caused the illness. He backed calls for the alliance to discuss the issue next week.
Mr Prodi intervened after concern grew in Italy, where there have been 30 cases of serious illness involving
soldiers who served in Bosnia and Kosovo, 12 of whom developed cancer. Six of the Italian servicemen are
said to have died of leukaemia.
Mr Prodi said in a radio interview that he wanted "the truth to be ascertained, not only concerning the
soldiers, but also for the people who lived near them, the population".
He said: "It is clear that if there is even a minimal risk, these arms must be abolished. And even if this
risk was not there, I don't like the idea of using these particular weapons." Mr Prodi proposed
"immediate contacts with the governments of Bosnia and Serbia to discuss pollution and the problems linked to
depleted uranium".
Although the EU's jurisdiction is limited, it may have powers in environmental or health and safety areas
under which it can act, particularly if some of the ammunition was made in the EU.
Greece said yesterday that it would screen more than 1,000 of its soldiers stationed in Kosovo for
side-effects from exposure to depleted uranium ammunition.
So far, Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Finland have said they will screen their Kosovo veterans, and Bulgaria
is also to monitor the health of its small detachment in the province. In Britain, the Ministry of Defence
said it would monitor developments closely. The Pentagon said it was aware of the worries being raised
by some of America's allies.
Nato insists there is no evidence of a link between the munitions and cancer. Its spokesman, Mark Laity,
said: "The Italians have, very properly and in response to public concern, launched a public inquiry,
and Nato is assisting them in every way it can."
Nato has pledged to help with a request from Italy for more information on the use of depleted uranium.
There is also growing support for calls by Italy for a new mechanism to exchange scientific and medical
information, and possible health issues, among the 19 Nato member countries. The Italians will press for
such a mechanism at a political committee and at an informal meeting of Nato ambassadors on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON, January 4 - The Pentagon rejected Italian calls for a moratorium
on the use of radioactive depleted uranium (DU) munitions, saying it had found no link to leukemia or
any other health problems among troops who served in the Balkans.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said the US military had detected no adverse health effects either among US
troops who have served in the Balkans or those who handle DU rounds or work in tanks protected by DU armor.
"We don't see any health reason to consider a moratorium now," he said at a briefing here.
Italy's defense ministry called on NATO to discuss its proposal for a moratorium on the use DU munitions,
while acknowledging it had found no direct link between the armor-piercing munitions and the deaths
from leukemia of six Italians who served in the Balkans.
NATO has agreed to take up the DU concerns at a meeting Tuesday in Brussels that had been requested by
Italy, Belgium and Portugal. France joined the others Thursday in urging NATO to provide more information on
the use of depleted uranium.
The concerns have been fanned by a number of reported leukemia cases among Balkans veterans in a number of
European countries whose families believe resulted from exposure to depleted uranium.
Bacon said the Pentagon was aware of the concerns and would work closely with NATO.
"We have not found any unusual health effects at all," Bacon said of the US troops who have served in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Bacon said that US A-10 Thunderbolt attack jets fired 31,000 depleted uranium rounds during 100 missions
carried out during the 1999 NATO air war in Kosovo.
Another 10,800 DU rounds were fired in Bosnia in 1994-95, according to NATO's military headquarters.
Last year, NATO provided UN inspectors with possible coordinates of 112 sites in Kosovo that were targeted with DU rounds.
UN experts who visited 11 of the sites in November found remnants of DU ammunition and low levels of
radiation at impact points at eight sites, but did not detect "any wider area of contamination," according to
the UN Environment Programme.
A US survey in March of nine DU target areas in the US sector of Kosovo found no trace of DU, Pentagon officials said.
DU was first used in combat during the 1991 Gulf War both as munitions and in armor on US heavy tanks and fighting vehicles.
Twice as dense as lead and with low levels of radioactivity, depleted uranium is prized by the US
military because it can slice through enemy armor while protecting US tanks against attack.
Bacon credited DU armor for the fact that not a single US tank was destroyed by the Iraqis during the Gulf War.
After the war, DU exposure was suspected by some as a possible source of the mysterious illnesses
experienced by Gulf War veterans. But a Pentagon investigation concluded last month that depleted uranium was unlikely to have been the cause.
A study by the Rand Corporation said that "cancer is the only radiation-associated disease that has been
shown to be related to inhalation of radioactive particulates in humans, but there is no evidence
documented in the literature of cancer or any other adverse health effect related to radiation received
from exposure even to natural uranium, which is more radioactive than DU."
The US Veterans Administration has been tracking 33 veterans of the Gulf War who were wounded in "friendly
fire" incidents involving depleted uranium rounds, at least 15 of whom still have DU fragments embedded in them.
Uranium has been found in their urine, but so far they have manifested no kidney disease or other symptoms
attributable to radiation effects, the Rand study said.
A separate review by the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine, however, concluded there was
not enough evidence to determine whether uranium exposure is associated with adverse health outcomes.
"While the studies did not suggest that uranium has adverse health effects, the studies were of
insufficient quality, consistency or statistical power to permit a conclusion regarding the presence or
absence of an association in humans," it said.
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Defense Minister Bjorn von Sydow of Sweden, which
holds the European Union (news - web sites) presidency, said on Thursday action was needed on reports of deaths or illnesses among peacekeeping
soldiers who had served in the Balkans.
``It is important that we act,'' von Sydow said in a statement.
The so-called ``Balkan syndrome'' has come under the spotlight over the past few days following reports that six Italian soldiers who served in the
former Yugoslavia developed leukemia and died after exposure to the ammunition.
``I welcome a discussion about the Belgian proposal to set up a medical working group within the EU, von Sydow said, adding the proposal would be
discussed at a January 9 meeting of the interim Political and Security Committee.
Sweden's ambassador to NATO (news - web sites) had been instructed to consult with the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, he said. Sweden, which
holds the EU presidency in the first half of 2001, is not a member of NATO.
``The Swedish presidency will be in close contact with the (European Union) Commission regarding future developments of this issue,'' von Sydow said.
Romano Prodi, president of the Commission which is the EU's executive arm,
said on Thursday he wanted light to be shed on claims linking depleted
uranium from spent NATO ammunition to deaths and illnesses of NATO soldiers
who had been stationed in the Balkans.
Prodi said ammunition with depleted uranium should not be used if there was even the slightest risk for soldiers or civilians.
Italian Defense Minister Sergio Mattarella said on Wednesday NATO had told
Rome only last month that depleted uranium had been used in Serbia in 1999 and in Bosnia in the mid-1990s.
Italy asked NATO on Wednesday to investigate the growing concerns over the
use of depleted uranium. Similar requests have also been made by Portugal
and Belgium, which have also reported deaths among soldiers who served in
the Balkans. Five soldiers have died in Belgium and one in Portugal.
Home Page