Spring 1999: NATO bombs Serbia.
A year later, at the request of the United Nations, NATO confirms
that its ammunition contained radioactive depleted uranium.
Last summer we visited one of NATO's bombing targets, Pljackovica Mountain,
3km from Vranje, a densely populated city of about 100,000 inhabitants.
Once the depleted uranium exploded into fine dust, it spread far and wide.
Eleven years later, people are still afraid of the consequences.
We are worried, who wouldn't be? Mostly for the children.
When our grandchildren come, we don't dare give them that water.
We used to bring water from Vranje.
The water is constantly monitored for uranium levels, but some here suspect
that uranium is in the ground and food chain, too.
Health data released recently confirms the fears.
In 1998, there were 21 children born with deformities.
In 2008, there were 73.
The number of newborn babies hasn't changed?
No, it is about the same: 800-1,000 newborn babies per year in Vranje.
At the same time, cancer rates more than doubled between 2000 and 2006.
A report published by the UN shows that more than a third of the people
tested from this area have experienced
changes in their blood cells and their DNA-containing chromosomes.
The study also revealed uranium in their urine.
Uranium is not only radioactive, it is very toxic as well.
It is nephrotoxic, so it affects kidneys, then liver and spleen.
Actually, the whole organism is affected from the aspect of toxicity.
It is poisoned.
Kovacevic says that uranium sticks to bones, causes cells to mutate
and leads to disease.
Are we healthy or ill? Shall we drink the water or not?
Are our blood and urine in order? We know nothing. Nothing.
In addition to depleted uranium, highly carcinogenic plutonium
has been found across the border at bombing sites in Kosovo.
A particle of plutonium that, say, entered the body of an Italian soldier
in Kosovo could have led to the fatal consequences
of Italian troops in Kosovo.
More that 250 Italian soldiers who served abroad, from here to Iraq,
have died from diseases linked to uranium contamination.
So that country has been unusually involved in investigations here.
Italian humanitarians have come to talk with people here
about the consequences of the bombing.
Now we are asking ourselves, and that's one of the reasons why we are here,
if soldiers who stayed so short in that territory got sick,
what's happening with the civil population who resides here,
who eats, drinks and lives normally?
Decontamination of Pljackovica Mountain began in 2004.
The projectiles around the TV transmitter have been cleared.
But what about the rest?
We don't have information on how many projectiles have been dropped.
We know how many we collected and decontaminated, but there are
around 1,000 projectiles missing from the set of the bomber.
We suspect that they dropped many more projectiles than what we found.
We used to pass there. When we go to Pljackovica for wood or fruits,
we pass just beside the transmitter.
From what we can see, nothing is cleaned.
Is it cleaned or not, we don't know.
In Kosovo, the situation is worse.
None of more than 100 known bombing sites has been cleaned.
Cancer rates have increased there, too.
Until 1998, we had 1 in 1,000 children suffering from leukemia.
Now it is from 10 to 15 per 1,000 (children).
Why is that?
Rather than getting answers, he was told not to ask too many questions.
Until five years ago, I was warned by my Serbian government that
it is not the smartest thing to talk about that.
And for Kosovo Albanians, complaining about NATO
would be politically incorrect.
Srbljak says the only thing that could be done at this stage
is mass screening for cancer. But there are no funds for it.
The lack of money also bothers local institutions in Vranje.
They need funds for prevention and monitoring over the population
and more advanced equipment for the detection of radioactivity.
We used to write to everyone. We wanted to get that equipment.
It's easier to treat the entire water system
and anything else in the environment.
But when it comes to the depleted uranium, I think it is a subject that is
not so favorable for Brussels, NATO or the American administration.
Japan seems to be the only country that might help.
The only hope for Serbian people and what is going on here, and their
people had the same experience with nuclear energy used inhumanely,
is the Japanese government in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I think they understand us, as we share the same problem.
Some people here in Vranje have lost hope.
There are more and more people who want to move away from Vranje.
They advise their children to leave, and tell those who
not to come back.