Athens News
February 15, 2001
POSTCARD FROM YUGOSLAVIA
Much aDU about something
http://athensnews.com.dolnet.gr/athweb/nathens.prnt_article?e=C&f=&t=02&m=A05&aa=2
BY SVETLANA STANKOVIC LALA IN NIS
Special to the Athens News

You can't hide from radiation.

Although the issue has dropped out of international headlines, the people on the streets of Serbia - contaminated or not by DU-tipped missiles - are still naturally concerned. For themselves, of course, but even more for the lives of their children, born or unborn.

There is anger at where all the experts warning about radioactivity from the depleted uranium have been till now. The weapons with the "radioactive filling" weren't fired yesterday but several years ago in Bosnia and almost two years ago in Serbia. As long as no foreign soldiers died, there was more silence than talk.

For the people left behind, a sense of hopelessness predominates. "Where am I going to go? Where to run? I don't have any other houses, even if I knew I was going to die in a year," says an old man, who lives with his family and three grandchildren in Vranje, 10 km from Kosovo and close to one of the eight radioactive areas marked by the Yugoslav military. "I am afraid but I try not to think about that. There is no hope for us if life in this area is really endangered," adds his daughter-in-law.

According to information now published locally, the city of Nis, 100km north of Kosovo, might have been "DU bombed" during the 50-plus attacks by Nato in 1999, though Nis is not currently on the lists of the regions endangered by the depleted uranium. "We think about our offspring in the next 10 years with anxiety, regardless of the part of Serbia we live in," remarks Stella Jovanovic, a journalist from Nis.

In Kosovska Mitrovica, north of Kosovo, local politician Marko Jaksic says the number of malignant diseases increased 200% in the year 2000 compared to 1998, the year before the bombing. He added that there is an unusually high number of premature births, miscarriages and cases of babies born with the worst types of deformity. The Nis Clinical Centre council of doctors claims that the number of children with genetic deformities increased 250% in the same period.

Despite all this cause for alarm, the people know they can't do anything. They just wait to be told their fate.

ATHENS NEWS , 15/02/2001 , page: A05
Article code: C12878A052