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Saturday, December 30 8:11 PM SGT
Italian soldier who worked in Balkans dies of leukemia
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ROME, Dec 30 (AFP) - An Italian soldier who served as a peacekeeper in Bosnia has died of leukemia linked to radiation exposure from depleted uranium arms, according to the latest edition of the Italian gendarmes' newspaper.

Rinaldo Colombo, 31, who died in September, worked as a peacekeeper in Bosnia in 1995, said the newspaper, published by the association "Un arma".

His death brought to five the number of Italian soldiers who are believed to have died from "Balkans Syndrome," the name given to a series of health problems contracted by those who served in the former Yugoslavia.

The Italian press reported Saturday that four other Italian gendarmes, including an officer, were undergoing tests and that there were about 20 suspected cases in all.

According to the independent Italian Observatory for the Protection of the Armed Forces, seven military personnel who served in Bosnia and Kosovo have died and a dozen others are ill from exposure to radiation from depleted uranium weapons.

In Belgium, five cases of cancer have been diagnosed in soldiers who worked in the Balkans, but no link with the arms has been established.

On Friday, Belgian Defence Minister Andre Flahaut asked his counterpart Bjorn von Sydow of Sweden, whose country takes over the EU presidency in January, to consider a collective study of health problems suffered by Balkans peacekeepers.

Several cases of leukemia have been recorded amongst Dutch veterans of the Balkans. Spain too has launched an intensive study of some 32,000 military personnel who were on duty there. Portugal's army chief of staff said Thursday that about 900 former peacekeepers would undergo medical tests to see if they had been exposed to radiation linked to depleted uranium arms.

The newspaper Publico -- citing a Lisbon cancer specialist -- reported last week that the death of a Portuguese soldier who served in Kosovo could be linked to NATO's use of the weapons in the Balkans.

NATO officials said last week that US aircraft fired 10,800 depleted uranium projectiles in Bosnia between 1994 and 1995.

Depleted uranium weapons are denser than conventional arms, which means they can penetrate heavy armour more easily. They were also used in Iraq in 1990 and 1991 and during the air campaign against Belgrade in 1999.