(Newswire.net — June 16, 2017) — Following decades of various disputes and conflicts between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Serbia’s southern province of Kosovo, armed clashes broke out in 1999. NATO accused Belgrade of “excessive and disproportionate use of force in Kosovo” against the insurgents.
Without the backing of the UN Security Council, NATO launched air strikes in March 1999, which lasted 78 days. During that time, analysts say that NATO dropped between 15 and 20 tons of radioactive material in armor piercing bombs with depleted uranium.
According to official figures, more than 1,700 civilians were killed during the bombing, but Serbian officials claim the toll continues to rise as people have been dying from diseases associated with depleted uranium. That’s why Serbia’s legal team is preparing a lawsuit against 19 NATO member states that were involved in the 1999 air campaign.
“The NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 used between 10 and 15 tons of depleted uranium, which caused a major environmental disaster,” according to Srdjan Aleksic, a Serbian lawyer who leads the legal team. “In Serbia, 33,000 people fall sick because of this every year. That is one child every day,” he insists.
Asked why Serbia decided to file a lawsuit 19 years after the air strikes, Aleksic replied that “it is never too late to sue someone who has caused an environmental catastrophe, someone [who] bombed Serbia with a quasi-nuclear weapon, i.e. depleted uranium.”
Aside from Serbian nationals, the legal team also comprises legal experts from the EU, Russia, China and India. NATO press office has confirmed it is aware of the lawsuit, but offered no further comment.
The team behind the lawsuit claims there exists a record of citizens who “died or fell sick as a proven result of the NATO bombing.” The lawsuit was brought to make NATO member countries pay compensation “for financial and non-financial damages.” Aleksic says that NATO should provide treatment for people suffering from cancer and also the necessary technology and equipment to remove all traces of the depleted uranium from Serbia, which is by far more expensive than treatments for the cancer patients.
The use of depleted uranium bombs and ammunition sparked controversy because of the nature of radioactive material that continuously pollutes the area of use within several billion years. Its durable effect that goes outside its military purpose causing leukemia, cancer, sterility, kidneys failure and various other deadly diseases, was the reason the weapon was blacklisted under international conventions and rules that protect civilians. However, the US, the Great Britain and France strongly opposed the move due to its high effectiveness on military targets.
Depleted uranium bombs, aka ‘real dirty bombs,’ were first used during the First Gulf War against Iraq in 1991. Most recent usage of DU bombs was reported in Syria, where tons of radioactive material have been dropped.