Mitrovica

The Effects of War

bha. The internist Dr Nebojsa Srbljak is the founder of the non-governmental organization „Angelo misericordioso“ with headquarters in Mitrovica.
Seven years ago he started working on the effects of uranium weapons which had caused a heavy increase of malignant tumors, particularly lung cancer. The area‘s inhabitants are frightened as they assume uranium to have got into the food chain. According to Dr Srbljak there is a real explosion of tumor diseases in his region. After having trained as a specialist in Belgrade, he returned to Mitrovica. Diseases of this kind mainly affect 20-50-year-old people. We are talking about the people living north of the river Ibar. „Between the years 1997 and 1998 we recorded a peak of lung cancer diseases affecting persons at the age of 72 to 75; between 1999 and 2000 we have the 45-year-old forming the top group“, says Dr Srbljak. The urological diseases have gone up, too. Patients‘ examinations have shown that they do not have any genetic predispositions for diseases with cancer. In 1999 the majority of those men suffering from cancer were to be found on the Albanian border and on the outskirts of Klina. The Italian soldiers also fell sick rapidly. Barely 18 months after their (military) operation in Kosovo they developed symptoms of leukemia. Apart from cases of lung cancer we found an increase in the incidence of leukemia. Nobody should try to tell me that stress has caused these diseases. „Stress, smoking and poverty were prevalent in Serbia before 1999“, says the physician. „Experts of the WHO came to see us in March 2001. To this day we have not heard anything of them.“
Why does the world not sympathize with the suffering people? The perpetrators‘ mercilessness speaks volumes.

Source: www.osservatoriobalcani.org
„Il male del Kosovo“, 11.11.2008