DU and the Bulgarian Soldiers in Kosovo
(where they should not be!)
"24 Chasa", Bulg. Daily, Jan. 5, p. 2; "SEGA", Bulg. Daily, Jan. 5, 01, p. 2; "Monitor", Bulg. Daily, Jan. 5, p. 3; TV Channel 1, TV "DEN".

The Victims

1/ Sergeant Danail Danailov from the German KFOR quota He has stayed first in the German Hospital in Prisren. He leaves the hospital with diagnosis "rhabdomyolisis" (? = progressive muscle deformation).

He comes to Sofia and goes to the Bulgarian Army Medical Academy. The doctors there declare

1/ the diagnosis false,
2/ Danailov healthy and fit to go back to Kosovo.

A day later Danailov goes back to the Bulgarian Army Medical Academy with acute renal insufficiency (insufficienta renalis).

After some days he again has been declared healthy and fit. The Bulgarian Doctors from the Bulgarian Army Medical Academy all of them with Army rank) have kept receiving and getting him out from the BAMA clinics for several weeks. (I.e., they behaved re Danailov as if they have been dealing with a particularly HOT potato!) Besides they obstinately have tried to manipulate Danailov into believing that he is healthy and fit.

But Danailov's complaints have kept worsening.

Danailov's complaints

- He gets tired very quickly
- He has incessant muscle pain in the waist and chest;
- His hair is getting down;
- His skin is covered with rash;
- Lately his fingers are getting strangely twisted.

Danailov made the round of 4 BAMA clinics from spring till autumn 2000. At last he has been sent to the specialized Institute for Doctors Qualification. And Dr. Ishpekova there confirmed her German colleagues' diagnosis.

BAMA doctors consultation discussed Danailov's condition on Oct 11, 2000, and recommended a check-up abroad.  Bulgarian First NATOist, Solomon Passi, the Atlantic (he is a president of the Atlantic Club in Bulgaria?!) comes out with the idea that Danailov should go to Germany.

But the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense could not find time to send a letter to Berlin asking for help. The employees there justified themselves with the lack of full agreement among the doctors. Just before the Catholic Christmas an unofficial information came: the State Secretary of the German Army Administration is willing to sign an application from the part of the Bulgarians for medical check-up and eventual treatment in the German Army hospital in the town of Ulm. There is no official confirmation from Berlin till Jan. 5.

Danailov is at his home in the town of Svistov and his mother is looking after him. She very often cannot go to work because he needs her at home. His medicine is very expensive (mainly vitamins and bio-stimulating drugs) – about 200 leva while his salary as a sergeant is a little above a 100 leva. He has not received for 4 months his additional payment in hard currency for his work in Kosovo. Defense Minister Boiko Noev (Bulgarian NATOist 2) declares cheerfully that the Ministry of Defense is in contact with their German colleagues, and, eventually, they will send Sergeant Danailov to Germany. (Meanwhile they are content to wait patiently for his death here.)

Ministry of Defense trust their doctors from the Bulgarian Army Medical Academy (yesterday evening, Jan. 5., one of their BAMA doctors, General Zlatev, filled up my TV screen with his fat, mean, mercenary face to assure us all that: 1/ Depleted Uranium is as innocent as mother's milk: it cannot cause any diseases – God forbid!

2/ The Bulgarian soldiers in Kosovo are healthy and fit as a fiddle.

3/Sergeant Danailov is healthy and fit as two fiddles! The Ministry of Defense, Bulgarian NATOist Nr. 2, says they are waiting only for the German doctors' conclusion to send Danailov there. (What conclusion? The German doctors from the Prisren German hospital had given their conclusion long ago! Minister Noev the NATOist surely wants to say that they are IMpatiently waiting Mrs. Danailova, the victim's mother, to stop fighting, and to get resign to her son's coming death – just as he himself seems already quite resigned.

(Their Masters from the Pentagon and NATO have surely demanded from them to keep bury Danailov's case as deep as it is possible!)

TV channel "DEN" has broadcast a report from the town of Svistov.  Danail looked almost transparent, young and vulnerable – like a lost 15-year boy...

Tired. Betrayed.

The journalist asked him is he in contact with his colleagues in Kosovo and if they had some complaints too.  He answered some of them have complaints but they do not dare to tell about them out of fear they will be kicked out of the army.  His mother was as thin as he was, and as pale. But there was vitality, there was anger in her one does not feel anymore in her son...

Emil Ivanov

Danailov's colleague in Kosovo with similar symptoms. He has been sent for medical check-up but the results, apparently, have been classified: nobody has seen them till that moment!  On the top of Danailov's and Ivanov's cases (plus 13 more soldiers with strange health problems!) the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense insists that there are no health problems among the Bulgarian soldiers in Kosovo!

Alexander Vassilev (26)

(Bulgarian Volunteer in the Yugoslavian Army during the US-NATO War) He had been in Kosovo during the bombing.

Vassilev complaints of:
- general weakness;
- bad cough;
- pain in the eyes.

He was told he had cataracta in both eyes – very amazing at his age, the doctor had said.  80% of his Army friends – both Bulgarian and Serbs – have the same complaints.

A friend of his from Belgrade has to resort to spectacles only a month after the war. At the same time a tumor appeared on his neck and he could not move his shoulder and arm. When they talked last he informed Vassilev that the doctors insist on operating him. Vassilev has no news from him since.

Another of his friends from Nis has told him for reports on the Serb TV (before the October CIA coup in Belgrade) about babies born with deformities.

Yugoslavian chemical army subdivisions had come to Kosovo to check soil and air there during the bombing.

A captain from these subdivisions had told him confidentially that the situation in Kosovo (at that moment) was catastrophically disastrous. Vassilev has a baby son. The bay has some problems with his penis, and has to be operated.

The baby son has also a very bad persistent cough, easily falls ill and need a month to recover. The Bulgarian media announces also that a special medical team will be –0 is sent – to Kosovo to carry out medical checks on the Bulgarian soldiers there.

Medical team of doctors with military ranks who will say what they are ordered to!

By the way, Danailov thinks he is poisoned. They even quote the poison to blame used for treating the timber with which he has been working. (The timber has come from Kosovo.)

Bulgarian media from Jan. 6, 2001
Novinar, Bulg. Daily, Jan. 6, p. 1
14 types of poisons are found in the organisms of all the Bulgarian rangers, who have been in Kosovo according to checks carried by the Bulgarian Army Medical Academy in September 2000. A second Bulgarian soldier has come from Kosovo with Danailov's diagnosis: Sergeant Emil Ivanov.

The additional checks at the Bulgarian Army Medical Academy have shown that Sergeant Ivanov is heallthy. Danailov and Ivanov had muscle complaints because of the flu many of the Bulgarian soldiers had last winter. Danailov had been sent back to Bulgaria in spring 2000 with muscle deformation as a result of acute intoxication.

(I wonder when at last they will come to an agreement what exactly to say in public space. Is Danailov's muscle deformation due to a flu? Or, maybe, to acute intoxication? At that moment we only know that his condition has NOTHING to do with the Depleted Uranium – There Is No Doubt About It!) "Novinar" informs us that the Bulgarian rangers might be withdrawn from Kosovo because of the poisons (?) there.

(Translations from the Bulgarian media on Jan. 5-6, 2001 by Bl. Doncheva with some comments.)