BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jan 17 (AFP) -  The number of reported cancer cases in a Serb-run suburb of Sarajevo has increased fivefold since 1988, a Bosnian Serb scientist said Wednesday, adding that the rise could have been caused by the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions in the region.

Another Bosnian Serb scientist spoke of an increase in cancer cases in the city of Banja Luka, and of a rise in the number of anomalies in newborn babies. "The number of registered cancers in the Srpsko Sarajevo region in 2000 was five times higher than in 1988", Borisa Starovic told a news conference in the Bosnian Serb capital of Banja Luka.

Starovic, a member of a Bosnian Serb team of scientists formed to investigate the health effects of depleted uranium munitions in the Bosnian Serb entity (RS), said preliminary results pointed to DU as a possible cause of cancer.

"Something had to cause all this," he said. "It is reasonable to suspect that depleted uranium used for military purposes by NATO on the territory of Republika Srpska and the whole of Bosnia has had harmful effects on the health of the population in general," Starovic said.

Meanwhile the Bosnian Serb army said it planned to carry out medical tests on members of the population exposed to NATO's 1994 and 1995 bombing with DU munitions, Bosnian Serb radio reported. A team of military medical experts is to start with medical check ups of the population soon, Colonel Zdravko Samardzic said.

Samardzic is heading a team measuring level of radiation of military material, transported to the eastern Bosnian Serb town of Bratunac from Sarajevo's Serb-dominated Hadzici suburb, bombed by NATO in 1995. The level of radiation in the Bratunac facilities was within normal limits, Samardzic said.

However he added that radiation emitted by a 30 millimeter shell, used by NATO's 1995 bombing of Hadzici and brought to Bratunac, was 80 times higher than recommended.

The United States has admitted firing 10,800 DU rounds, used for their armour-piercing characteristics, in Bosnia between 1994 and 1995. Branislav Lolic, another member of the Bosnian Serb scientific team, said that a hospital in Banja Luka had registered 1,650 patients dying from cancer in 2000, as against 650 in 1993.

Without giving precise figures, Lolic also warned that the number of anomalies found on newborn babies was increasing.

The scientists gave no information on figures for cancer cases in the Republika Srpska as a whole. A number of cancer deaths among soldiers and aid workers who served with NATO peacekeeping forces in Bosnia has sparked fears of a link between the illnesses and radioactive dust emitted by DU munitions.