RELJAN, Yugoslavia (AP) - The unexplained death of a local shepherd. Mysteriously sickened people and livestock. Fruit drying on the branch.
Normally the stuff of local folklore, such occurrences have unnerved villagers living next to a patch of land cordoned off as one of six sites in southern Serbia contaminated by depleted uranium ammunition during NATO's 1999 air campaign against Yugoslavia.
``Who knows what those planes dropped on us. It thundered endlessly,'' said Miroljub Milic, 46.
Milic's home is on the edge of a cluster of 70 Serb homes in Reljan, 185 miles southeast of Belgrade. Some 140 ethnic Albanian houses are farther away, and the two communities rarely mix.
But both share a common fear of sickness - or worse - from exposure to NATO munitions containing depleted uranium.
Concerns that depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal used in armor-piercing ammunition, could cause cancer were unleashed last month after Italy began studying the illnesses of 30 Balkans veterans, seven of whom died of cancer, including five cases of leukemia.
Other European countries have begun screening soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans. Many civilian aid agencies followed suit, although NATO maintains there is no evidence of a health risk.
On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said more research was needed to determine whether radiation from NATO weapons had damaged the health of peacekeepers and civilians in Yugoslavia.
The Yugoslav government on Wednesday formed a special committee for monitoring the effects of depleted uranium in southern Serbia and in Montenegro.
In Kosovo, which bore the brunt of the NATO bombing, the U.N. mission has begun marking sites where depleted uranium ammunition is known to have been used. The U.N. mission is also starting a voluntary testing program at the main hospital in Pristina, the capital, for heavy metal and radiation levels.
These days, an eerie silence shrouds Reljan as villagers watch the Yugoslav army hauling equipment to test radioactivity levels. Their main pasture has been declared a contaminated area and sealed off.
Yugoslav soldiers ring the 7.5-acre area in barbed wire and construction teams plan to erect concrete slabs to make it even more inaccessible, said Col. Cedomir Vranjanac.
The jury is still out on whether contact with depleted uranium ammunition is detrimental to health, but some on the site Thursday had already made up their minds.
``This land is permanently contaminated and unusable,'' Vranjanac said, adding that it threatens the villagers, their livestock and crops.
Milic said he remembered the day in May 1999 when seven Yugoslav soldiers died from NATO bombs not far from his home. The army had positioned itself on the hilltop and seven military trucks were also shelled in the attack.
``No one else was killed around here afterward. But the curse came much later,'' he said. ``Bees left our forests, healthy people suddenly became ill. Three of my sheep died in three days.''
Milic claims his wife, Nada, is one of the afflicted. She fainted a few months after the bombing and has had the ``shakes'' ever since.
``Nothing helps, said the 46-year-old woman. ``I keep shaking and the doctors don't know what's wrong with me.''
The unexplained death last week of a local shepherd has added to the unease.
The 35-year-old, known only as Milko, was ``always the image of health, so brave it was crazy,'' Milic said. ``He would take the cattle out to the pasture even during the bombing.''
``We sat drinking ... together,'' Milic recalled. ``The next day, he died.''
Another Reljan villager, Mita Paunovic, 72, is more concerned for his goats.
``The army warned us the hill was contaminated but we didn't believe them,'' Paunovic said, adding that he and others tore down the fence erected by the military to get to pastures.
Paunovic now believes they made a ``fatal mistake.''
``I don't take my goats to the pasture any more,'' Paunovic said. ``But what about the water that streams down and the wind that blows from the hill?''