SARAJEVO, March 25 (Hina) - Experts of the United Nations Environmental Protection programmes (UNEP) have established that the use of ammunition with depleted uranium had caused no significant consequences for the environment and the
condition of people in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
SARAJEVO, March 25 (Hina) - Experts of the United Nations
Environmental Protection programmes (UNEP) have established that
the use of ammunition with depleted uranium had caused no
significant consequences for the environment and the condition of
people in Bosnia-Herzegovina. #L#
Former Finnish environmental protection minister, Pekka Haavisto,
who is leading the UNEP delegation whose task is to check the
allegations about serious contamination caused by the said type of
ammunition, said on Tuesday in Sarajevo that the 17-member team had
conducted analyses for several months and established that there
were no serious consequences.
The international experts examined 15 different locations
throughout Bosnia, and five of them were the subject of their
investigation, given that they had been targets of NATO air strikes
in 1994 and 1995 when the alliance's planes hit Bosnian Serbs
positions.
Haavisto said that traces of depleted uranium had been found only in
Hadzici and Han-Pijesak (a wider Sarajevo area), and added that
radiation at those sites were very low and could not seriously
affect the environment.
Experts of the World Health Organisation, who checked allegations
about the links between an increase in the number of patients
treated for malign tumours and the use of the ammunition filled with
depleted uranium, also found no evidence to corroborate such
claims.