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IN KOSOVO, NATO ALLIES BLAME DEPLETED URANIUM FOR CANCER CASES

“This happens every time I visit a site where NATO fired depleted uranium,” my interpreter Dzafer Buzoli commented. “In all the villages nearby people will tell you about a high rate of rare cancers.”

hundreds of Italian veterans who served in Kosovo have successfully sued their defence ministry for cancers their courts accepted were linked to DU exposure in the Balkans.

With Britain and America supplying the toxic ammunition to Ukraine, Declassified investigates the long-term health impact on one of the few countries where the weapon has been fired in anger.

DECLASSIFIED UK, PHIL MILLER, 13 JULY 2023

“………………………………………… Jutting up from the roadside are tattered American and NATO flags around a camouflaged stone column bearing the twin headed eagle emblem of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The rebel movement took the territory nearly a quarter century ago, after US jets pummelled Serb soldiers on the surrounding Ceja mountain with at least 286 rounds of depleted uranium – a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal made from nuclear waste.

Such airstrikes were repeated all across the border zone in 1999, driving the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army out of Kosovo within 78 days. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair relished the victory, basking in their newfound popularity. Roads and children would bear their names, spelt locally as Klinton and Tonibler. But this “humanitarian intervention” – designed to protect Kosovar Albanians from ethnic cleansing – has left a bitter legacy in the very communities it was meant to save.

“We have 20 to 30 people a year with cancer here.”

Sipping a macchiato at a roadside cafe opposite the KLA monument, Adil is pleasantly surprised when he hears a journalist has come to ask about cancer in the village. “My father has just died from it,” he tells my translator, as he gladly pays for our drinks. “We have 20 to 30 people a year with cancer here.”

Without prompting, he links the illnesses to weapons used in the war. “We had so many bombs dropped here because we are near the border. A small bomb infects the whole surrounding area.” When told Britain is sending depleted uranium tank shells to Ukraine, Adil exclaims: “I feel sorry for them. I wouldn’t want anyone to experience it.”

Our conversation arouses interest from KLA veterans at the cafe. One of them, who normally works abroad, volunteers to show us a bomb crater. The others fear reprisals if they publicly criticise NATO. Their small country, about half the size of Wales, still depends on the US-led alliance for security against Serbia, which refuses to recognise Kosovo’s independence.

Jumping in my rented Vauxhall Corsa, we gingerly head off road through several fields to a heap of soil sprinkled with wild flowers. “This is one of the spots that was hit six times with depleted uranium,” the veteran informs us. “The crater was five or six metres deep and seven metres wide. We brought healthy soil to put on top, in order to reduce radiation for the people.” 

Despite a warning from a Danish NGO, villagers were growing vegetables in the vicinity. The veteran puts the number of local cancer cases even higher than Adil – claiming there are 50-60 patients in the village, many of them young people. 

At the last census in 2011, Zhur had a population of under 6,000 – suggesting a cancer rate of around 1%. That would be three times the worst rate in the European Union. The veteran had likely made an overestimate, but I was to hear similar disturbing stories throughout this former conflict zone.

Hidden hazards

NATO’s use of depleted uranium (DU) in Kosovo was not confirmed until the year after the war, amid panic over ‘Balkan syndrome’. Italian peacekeepers who took over many of the bombed out Yugoslav army bases were going down with leukaemia. 

In March 2000, NATO’s chief, Labour peer George Robertson, belatedly told the UN’s Kofi Annan that “approximately 31,000 rounds” of DU had been fired “throughout Kosovo during approximately 100 missions”. He said the weapon was deployed “whenever the A-10 engaged armour”, referring to the US air force’s Warthog ‘tankbuster’. 

One of the most powerful aircraft ever built, the Warthog’s giant gatling gun can fire a blizzard of 30mm bullets with ultra-dense depleted uranium cores, knocking out tanks in seconds. But its speed is superior to its accuracy. Typically, 90% of rounds miss the target. They spread out over 500 square metres, burying several metres into soft ground.

Upon impact, the rounds partially vaporise and produce a dust that is dangerous for those nearby to inhale, posing a risk to surviving Serb soldiers, local communities and incoming peacekeepers.

Lord Robertson’s admission that the weapon was used paved the way for the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and World Health Organisation (WHO) to inspect target sites – although scientists struggled to find them.

After months of intense internal chicanery over obtaining more accurate maps, they spent 24 days during 2000-1 surveying Kosovo for the twin threat posed by DU: radiation and heavy metal toxicity – which could cause cancer or birth defects. 

Much hinged on their findings. A negative outcome would undermine NATO’s humanitarian credentials and hamper the return of refugees from their temporary asylum in western Europe.

Ultimately, their reports were fairly inconclusive. When the WHO came to where I was now in Zhur and the Ceja mountain, they found the “precise location of the targeted site was difficult to pinpoint since access was restricted due to the presence of unexploded cluster bombs” – another controversial weapon dropped by NATO.

This meant scientists were only able to study an area in which they found just two out of nearly 300 rounds of the depleted uranium ammunition fired here. Based on tests of this small sample, the UNEP dismissed any radiation risk but said “from a toxicological point of view the exposure might be significant.”

The experts lamented: “It is unsatisfactory that the risk cannot be assessed quantitatively because the targeted area could not be investigated in its entirety” and warned “it would be prudent to complete the investigation after the area has been made safe.” 

Judging by the agricultural approach towards the blast craters that I found in Zhur, there has been no follow up survey. The UNEP’s press office confirmed to me their organisation had never returned to the site, despite their own recommendation, nor has it done any long term monitoring of the community’s health.

The NATO public affairs office in Kosovo also could not confirm it had followed up on UNEP’s recommendation to reinspect Zhur. Instead, the Atlantic alliance seized on some United Nations documents that suggested “sites with depleted uranium pose no significant health risks to the population”.

NATO told me: “This is the scientific evidence. And it has been consistent.” Yet many of these same reports urge precaution and long term monitoring – something those concerned with “scientific evidence” would surely be keen to undertake? 

………….towards the mediaeval Ottoman city of Prizren…..

Turning off at Rikavac roundabout ……………

The only signs of the war were three crumbling concrete walls that resembled a bombed out Serb barracks. As I stood near the site, a passerby pulled over to talk. Despite being unaware of what was fired here, he explained that 20-30 people a year were dying from cancer in his nearby village. “The state of Kosovo isn’t doing anything to help the community,” he complained, before driving away. 

“This happens every time I visit a site where NATO fired depleted uranium,” my interpreter Dzafer Buzoli commented. “In all the villages nearby people will tell you about a high rate of rare cancers.”

………………………………..He fears depleted uranium is the next tragedy for Kosovo, ever since his mother died in 2015 from a short battle with cancer aged 52. Buzoli turned to their local oncologist for answers. “He told me very informally it was because of what they had thrown at us during the war,” alluding to depleted uranium. 

The doctor then emigrated from Kosovo, concerned for his family’s health.

…………….“The power plants were operating at full capacity before the war and we never had this number of cancers,” he insists. “I believe depleted uranium is the cause. When you read about how hard it is for the population in Kosovo, southern Serbia and northern Albania – all these towns near the border where the weapon was fired have almost the same problem of high cancer.”

……………………………The director of Kosovo’s main oncology clinic in Pristina, Dr Ilir Kurtishi, warned last month that 890 new cases of cancer had been detected already this year, which local media described as “alarming”. ………….

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… many areas NATO liberated with depleted uranium are where Kosovo now relies upon to grow its food.

………………………..my guide, Branko, confirmed the monks were concerned about the possible health consequences, which have featured heavily in Serbian media. “Depleted uranium is the gift that keeps giving from the US,” he noted sarcastically. “And now they’re giving it to Ukraine, one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat.”

……………………………….Italian peacekeepers had conducted extensive demolition work there after the war, before discovering DU rounds in the wreckage. In the decades since, hundreds of Italian veterans who served in Kosovo have successfully sued their defence ministry for cancers their courts accepted were linked to DU exposure in the Balkans.

…………………………The International Campaign to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW), which conducted its own study in the Balkans, said “sites may require ongoing testing of groundwater”, warning that “estimates of how long this may need to be done run into centuries”.

The group believes “no systematic decontamination has been undertaken on any sites in Kosovo”. Even if authorities in Pristina wanted to embark on that route, they may struggle to afford it. 

In neighbouring Montenegro, where NATO fired depleted uranium at just one site, the clean up costs are daunting. To decontaminate 480 rounds, which took just 12 seconds to fire, Montenegro spent over a quarter of a million US dollars and devoted 5,000 working person days.

Kosovo has more than 100 such sites.

Radoniq

Six miles north of Gjakova lies Lake Radoniq, a vast reservoir that supplies drinking water for the city and many of southern Kosovo’s 200,000 inhabitants. Yet even this breathtakingly beautiful location was not spared from attack with depleted uranium.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. it seems that no one cited has done a long-term study of people’s health in the parts of Kosovo where the weapon was used. 

Buzoli is sceptical that these international agencies which rely so much on Western funding can be impartial on such a sensitive subject. He admits he doesn’t have all the answers, but rightly insists that’s not his role.

“If you are a doctor or a scientist, please come to Kosovo to do research,” he appeals. “Take soil samples, take air samples, take water samples, and come out with a neutral report that helps us understand how bad it is.” https://declassifieduk.org/in-kosovo-nato-allies-blame-depleted-uranium-for-cancer-cases/—

July 15, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | depleted uranium, EUROPE | Leave a comment