The Yugoslav government is trying to allay fears that NATO's use of depleted uranium in the 1999 bombing campaign could pose a health threat.

Concerns were raised in December, after Italy announced an investigation of 30 cases of illness involving soldiers who served in the region, 12 of whom developed cancer. Five have died of leukaemia.

Yugoslav newspapers devoted several pages to the controversy, with one paper, Vecernje Novosti, claiming that NATO was worse than Chernobyl.

A UN assessment team found slightly elevated levels of radiation or pieces of ammunition at eight of 11 sites it visited in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo in November.

Yugoslav experts say the depleted uranium will remain in the soil for billions of years, filter into ground water and ultimately move into the food chain. After the air war, the Yugoslav army sealed off four sites in Serbia just outside Kosovo and is in the process of cleaning them up.

Yet officials didn't rule out a potential rise in serious illnesses in the future.

Slobodan Cikaric, the head of the oncology department at Belgrade's Clinic for Oncology and Radiology, said no increase in cancer cases has been noted so far, but leukaemia, for example, could take two to five years to develop.

Jovan Djukanovic, a Serbian government spokesman, said: "There is no danger of radiation unless a person finds himself on the very spot hit with the depleted uranium or holds such ammunition in his bare hands.

"All the contaminated locations in southern Serbia have been visibly marked and sealed off," Mr Djukanovic said.

© Associated Newspapers Ltd., 06 January 2001