ZAGREB, Jan 11, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Croatians who took part in demining operations in Kosovo in 1999 will undergo medical exams for symptoms linked with possible exposure to depleted uranium munitions, their company said Thursday.

About 30 deminers from the Mungos company will undergo medical tests in a Zagreb hospital next week, a company official told AFP, adding that so far none of them had shown any serious health problems.

Croatia's health ministry announced on Wednesday that it would finance a study on the frequency of leukemia cases registered during the past 10 years in the country.

The aim of the research will be to establish whether there is a basis for suspicions that some leukemia cases are be linked to the use by NATO forces of armor-piercing depleted uranium projectiles during the 1991-1995 Serbo-Croatian conflict.

An independent weekly magazine, Globus, said that NATO forces used depleted uranium munitions in April 1995 when they bombed the air base in Udbina, in central Croatia some 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) from the Bosnian border, where Bosnian Serb forces were stationed. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)