BRATUNAC, Bosnia (Reuters) - A doctor in the Bosnian Serb town of Bratunac said she had noticed higher mortality among refugees from a town thought to have been hit by depleted uranium (DU) bullets, but could not say if there was any link.

Slavica Jovanovic said she had begun gathering data when she saw that more people were dying among those who had moved to Bratunac from Hadzici, a town east of Sarajevo where NATO had bombed arms stores and an armoured vehicle repair centre.

NATO experts confirmed recently that the remains of three bullets found in Hadzici contained depleted uranium.

Asked if they were the depleted uranium bullets which NATO said it used in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995, a spokesman said on Monday: "We suspect they are," while adding that a map showing exactly where the bullets were used was still being drawn up.

Jovanovic told Reuters Television at the weekend:

"When we analyse data on the mortality rate of the whole town's population and of the Hadzici population as a target group, we see that the mortality rate of the whole population has increased, but that the mortality rate of the Hadzici population was 1.5-2 times higher than that of the whole Bratunac population in the period from 1996-98.

"I really did not suspect anything at that moment, and for any suspicions about the external causes of these more frequent illnesses -- we don't have any proof for now."

HIGHER MORTALITY AMONG REFUGEES

Jovanovic said she had no specific information on the causes of death. She added that it was important to bear in mind that the mortality rate of refugees was normally higher than that of local people, and that of refugees from the Sarajevo region was higher still, due to a whole range of possible factors.

"I did not have any specific thoughts about it, but there are several factors to be taken into account: external environment, poor food, poor living conditions, suffering and nostalgia for home and property," she said.

She said she had stopped her research because of lack of funding, adding: "We need an analysis of the last two years as well, in order to have systematic data."

Yugoslav pathologist Zoran Stankovic told Reuters on Saturday in Belgrade that 400 people from Hadzici had died of various forms of cancer in the five years since the Bosnian war.

Speaking by telephone on Monday, he conceded that some might have died from other diseases, and he called for autopsies to be performed to fully ascertain the cause of death.

"Four hundred people have died. There are those who have died of malignant diseases, and other diseases. This deserves an examination, it opens a dilemma," he said.

"Autopsies need to be performed to establish the cause of death in order not to accuse anyone without any grounds."

FLAK JACKETS FROM AMMUNITION

He said Jovanovic was one of his sources of information, and that a resident of Bratunac and the director of the vehicle repair plant in Hadzici, Colonel Ratko Savic, were others.

Stankovic, who also said some of the dead had worn flak jackets made from the remains of ammunition found in Hadzici, said Savic did not want to speak now because he was afraid.

Bosnia's central authorities, reacting to a storm in some Western capitals over the deaths of some peacekeepers in the Balkans from leukaemia, say they have found no proven link between local deaths and the use of depleted uranium by NATO.

The statistics agency of Bosnia's Muslim-Croat federation said on Monday that the mortality rate from tumours, both benign and malign, in the federation was at the same level as it had been in 1990 across Bosnia.

The country was divided into two highly autonomous entities after the 1992-5 war that followed its declaration of independence from Yugoslavia. The other is the Serb Republic.

The agency put the rate at 1.2 deaths per 1,000 citizens. The mortality rate from tumours around Sarajevo in 1999 was 1.5 per 1,000, compared with 1.4 per 1,000 in 1990, it said. The 1999 mortality rate in newborn babies in the federation -- 11.2 per 1,000 -- compared with 15.3 per 1,000 in 1990 across Bosnia. (with additional reporting by Gordana Filipovic and Beti Bilandzic in Belgrade and Daria Sito-Sucic in Sarajevo)