From: "Janet M Eaton" <•••@••.•••>
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 12:25:47 +0000
Subject: [GSN] Polluted for years - NATO Strikes ...
From: "Janet M Eaton" <•••@••.•••>
I am still busy tracking the Environmental and human health
consequenecs of the NATO bombings in Yugoslavia -
This piece notes the terrible impact of living in the midst
of such horrendous levels of contamination as expereinced in Pancevo
suberb north of Belgarde where the worst releases of toxic chemicals
occured - into the air, soil and water inluding the Danube source
of drinking water for 10 million people !!
<snip>
the following quote from the article below may be of
interest--
"I am afraid to even think what we breathed in, what
chemicals got into our bodies," said Tamara
Radjenovic, a 32-year-old teacher, as she watched
her five-year old daughter Ana play in a park. Every
few minutes, the girl came to her mother to rest,
gasping for air.
"She gets tired so easily, she has dark circles
around her eyes. It wasn't like that before the
bombs. She is not the child she used to be,"
Radjenovic said of her daughter with a deep,
sorrowful sigh. "
There are presently people in networks around the world who are
working to ensure the NATO's crimes against humanity and human rights
and their defiance and violation of international law, the Geneva
Convention, all manner of environmental conventions and treaties
etc etc both in Iraq and Yugoslavia are not forgotten - just as
there are many on this list who work to ensure that a myriad of
mankinds inhumanities to women and children are exposed and
articulated for the many minds mesmerized by the monstrous mainstream
media propoganda of the globalizers.
all the best
janet
============================================
The Canadian Press
Serbian town will be polluted for years following NATO strikes
by MISHA SAVIC
PANCEVO, Yugoslavia (AP) - The grass is bleached to
a scary pale grey and little Ana has trouble
breathing when she plays in the park, weeks after
NATO caused environmental havoc by bombing key
industrial sites.
Pancevo, an industrial town eight kilometres
northeast of Belgrade, was the town worst hit during
the air raids, and doctors and environmental experts
say the after-effects of the bombing will be felt
for years - and maybe generations - to come.
Huge amounts of chemicals and poisonous fumes have
polluted the air, the ground and the water in and
around Pancevo.
The damage dates back to April when NATO missiles
struck Pancevo's three major industrial sites - an
oil refinery, a nitrogen fertilizer factory and a
chemical plant, releasing hundreds of tonnes of
toxic materials that spread over the entire region.
Weeks after the bombing ended, a visit to the
fertilizer factory still produced a stinging
sensation in the nose and throat. A sticky,
yellowish fluid, apparently a leaked chemical, stank
and slowly solidified under the blazing summer sun
near the front gate.
"I am afraid to even think what we breathed in, what
chemicals got into our bodies," said Tamara
Radjenovic, a 32-year-old teacher, as she watched
her five-year old daughter Ana play in a park. Every
few minutes, the girl came to her mother to rest,
gasping for air.
"She gets tired so easily, she has dark circles
around her eyes. It wasn't like that before the
bombs. She is not the child she used to be,"
Radjenovic said of her daughter with a deep,
sorrowful sigh.
Local doctors who examined the girl said the
symptoms were caused by the chemicals and that there
was nothing they could do now.
Pancevo's municipal authorities have compiled a
day-by-day list of dangerous leaks, fires and
explosions since March 24 when the air raids began.
The town of 70,000 was hit from the beginning.
At least 25,000 tonnes of fuel, mostly from the
bombed refinery, burned into the atmosphere,
blanketing a wide area with a layer of tar.
More than 1,400 tonnes of poisonous vinyl chloride
burned and spread noxious fumes when NATO bombs hit
a storage tank at Pancevo's Petrohemija factory. The
substance, normally used to produce plastics, is
carcinogenic, and two per cent of it turns into even
more dangerous phosgene when burned.
A hundred tonnes of mercury, almost as much sodium
hydroxide and tonnes of other chemicals, including
nitric acid, burned up or leaked into the Danube
River.
Those substances almost invariably cause respiratory
problems, nausea, diarrhea, dizziness, skin rashes
and blisters when inhaled in even the smallest
quantities.
In one of the worst nights of bombing, instruments
measuring pollution in Pancevo showed a vinyl
chloride concentration of 0.43 milligrams per cubic
metre, or 8,600 times more than recommended maximum
levels.
Doctors in Pancevo said there were about a hundred
cases of acute intoxication, mostly among nightshift
workers, security and firemen who were at the sites
during the nighttime raids. Three of them have died.
Health authorities are preparing a comprehensive
report expected to be released later this year.
While doctors have been instructed to withhold
details, they do acknowledge a sharp increase in
patients suffering from pollution-related symptoms.
"I had a patient who was treated for infertility
last year," said a local gynecologist, insisting on
anonymity.
"She wanted a baby so much, she was two months
pregnant when the bombing began. She got so
terrified of possible birth defects that she had an
abortion last month."
The woman made her decision after a surge of
miscarriages in the town in late April, he said.
Milan Borna, head of the environmental protection
department in Pancevo, said, "The full extent of the
damage will show in coming years. We fear that the
worst effects may be degenerative changes in future
generations."
Meanwhile, a 17-member expert team, assembled by the
UN Environment Program, arrived in Yugoslavia this
week and immediately headed to Pancevo to take
samples of water and soil for analysis in two mobile
laboratories.
A preliminary report is due later this month and a
broader one in September. UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan will then decide on possible follow-up
measures.
A mission member, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said a chief motive for the UN visit was
the health of the Danube River which flows through
Yugoslavia and into neighbouring Romania and
Bulgaria, carrying a share of the toxic chemicals
downstream.
c The Canadian Press, 1999
***************************************************************
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 01:32:57 +0400 (MSD)
From: •••@••.••• (Sviatoslav Zabelin)
THE BALKAN TALKS
On July 8 the SEU Councul Chairman Sviatoslav Zabelin met in the
SEU Moscow hedquarters Pekka Haavisto, former Finnish Minister of
Environment, now the Head of UNEP and Habitat Balkan environment task
force on Environment and Human Settlement.
According to Mr Haavisto it was important to know how the SEU
members active in expressing their position regarding Kosovo consider
the activities of this UN group. Balkan task force of UNEP and Habitat
is aimed to investigate how the military conflict affected the
environment and health conditions in the region. Balkan working group
publishes its weekly activity reports available on Internet:
http://www.grid.unep.ch/btf
By this October the Group is planning to complete its final
report and to work out the recommendations for the elimination of the
war consequences for those countries which will be involved in the
Serbia national economy restoration activities.
******************<snip>
This issue was written and complied by
Sviatoslav Zabelin, the SEU Council Co-Chair, •••@••.•••
Olga Berlova and Viktoria Kolesnikova, SEU CCI Press-secretaries,
•••@••.•••
Previous SEU Times issues could be found at the International
Society for Environmental Ethics server: www.igc.org/gadfly
