Depleted Uranium in Kosovo: Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment (United Nations Environment Programme, 2001)

Are We All Getting "Nuked" in Kosovo? 13-Mar-2007

https://www.nato.int/Kfor/chronicle/2001/nr_010124.htm Are We All Getting "Nuked" in Kosovo?

Text: Lt-Cdr. Rune Berge -- Photo: S J Lewis RM

PRISTINA: For the last couple of weeks, speculations about Depleted Uranium have spread faster in the world press than a storm in the Bermuda Triangle. But still we do not have a proper answer to the main question in this topic: Are we all getting nuked in Kosovo? "No", says Bernard Kouchner, former United Nations Administrator in Kosovo and one of the founders of Medecins sans Frontieres, winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. "According to my experience as Health Minister of France, there is no threat here. That is not to say I'm not taking this seriously. On the contrary, I'm suggesting that an independent body, such as Friends of Earth, should come and freely make their own exploration and investigation", he says in an UNMIK press release. Just a few days before he resigned as the UN Administrator in Kosovo, he visited a site that had clearly been under heavy attack during the 1999 air strikes. At the site, in the town of Klina in western Kosovo, the Italian Brigade's Nuclear Biological-Chemical unit demonstrated their techniques of seeking radiation left by depleted uranium. "The brigades check continuously all over Kosovo, and continuously they return to see if the level is higher than normal", Dr. Kouchner told media at the scene. He also mentioned that the results from the tests done on soldiers by the United Nations Environmental Program would be known in February. "We have also requested Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the head of the World Health Organization, to send specialists to Kosovo to do an investigation on the health of the population." Questioned whether he is concerned about the risk of depleted uranium, he responded: "I am concerned, but not worried. We are taking it seriously. But worried about the consequences of an eventual relationship between depleted uranium and cancer? No!" Same level of radioactivity in Sweden and Italy Previously in November a scientific team of the United Nations Environmental Program confirmed that there is not a high risk from depleted uranium in Kosovo. According to NATO, depleted uranium was used in 112 sites in Kosovo. In those sites, scientists measured slightly higher beta and gamma radioactivity during an examination last year. "We don't consider that risky, because the same level of radioactivity is found in natural background in some areas in Sweden and Italy", Pekka Haavisto, Chief of UNEP Assessment Team, said in Pristina in November last year. The team of 14 scientists, which he led, was also in Kosovo last October. On their second trip to Kosovo, the scientist examined eleven sites in southern and western Kosovo, taking soil and water samples, plus taking vegetation samples including milk samples from cows at the sites visited. He called for precautions to be taken especially when dealing directly with penetrates and sabots at the sites, as the final conclusions of the scientific assessment team can only be made after obtaining the results from laboratory analyses. "In Kosovo you have many other more serious environmental risks connected to the air pollution, waste treatment and management", Haavisto also added. Use of DU weapons could be war crime ITALY, Rome -- NATO's use of depleted uranium could be investigated as a possible war crime, the chief prosecutor for the international war crimes tribunal has said. Carla del Pronte told Italian state TV on Sunday: "If we have sufficient elements we will be obliged to investigate" as to whether the use of the heavy metal in the Balkans conflicts constituted a war crime. Numerous NATO member states, including Italy, are currently carrying out their own health and scientific investigations into a possible link between the use of the radioactive weapons used during the Balkan wars and cancer-related deaths among servicemen serving in the region. The latest country to embark on an investigation is Switzerland. Its defense ministry said on Sunday that it's planned to check the health implications of DU weapons test-fired in central Switzerland 30 years ago. U.N. plays GENEVA, Switzerland -- The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it is "unlikely" that depleted uranium ammunition used by NATO troops could have caused cancer. The Geneva-based United Nations health agency on Friday issued its first recommendation on the ammunition since the beginning of the current controversy over potential health risks. The body concluded it was "unlikely" that exposure to NATO weapons containing depleted uranium could have led to a higher risk of cancer among military personnel who served in the Balkan conflicts. But it said that it was planning a study to "assess whether there has been an increased rate of cancer amongst military personnel who served in the Gulf War or Balkans, as well as amongst exposed populations," CNN reports.