Internally Displaced Roma in Kosovo Poisoned by Lead

By Natasha Dokovska

MITROVICA, Kosovo, December 2, 2004 (ENS) - Roma in Kosovo’s camps for internally displaced persons are being poisoned by toxic lead in their living area and are victims of human right abuse by international and local authorities, claims the European Roma Rights Center, an international public interest law organization.

The focus of concern is 112 Romani families living in two camps for internally displaced persons (IDP) who were found to have high levels of lead in their bloodstreams by the World Health Organization.

According to information provided to the European Roma Rights Center by Paul Polansky of the Kosovo Roma Refugee Foundation, in 1999 the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) built the camps in question very near a toxic waste site, despite the protests of Polansky, who was at the time an advisor to the UNHCR on Romani issues.

On November 26, the European Roma Rights Center sent a letter on behalf of the 112 families to Pascale Moreau, head of UNHCR Kosovo, Bob Cruz, head of UNMIK Administration in Mitrovica, and Dragiša Milović, president of the Zveçan Municipal Assembly, expressing concern at the apparent unwillingness of their offices to move the families to safer living areas.

Camp for internally displaced persons in Mitrovica, Kosovo (Photo courtesy Fundacio Autonoma Solidaria)

In her letter to UN and municipal officials, European Roma Rights Center Executive Director Dimitrina Petrova points out that the World Health Organization recommended in July that the most vulnerable people be moved from the camps at once.

World Health Organization documents dated July 11, 2004, reveal harmful blood lead levels in Romani residents of the North Mitrovica and Zitkovac camps.

The blood lead levels were reported to be highest among young children, with 12 children between the ages of two and three years of age old experiencing such high blood lead levels that they require anti-convulsive medication.

The doctors report that the main target for lead toxicity is the nervous system, both in adults and in children. Long term exposure of adults to lead has resulted in decreased performance in some tests that measure functions of the nervous system.

At high levels of exposure, lead can severely damage the brain and kidneys in adults or children. In pregnant women, high levels of exposure to lead may cause miscarriage. High-level exposure in men can damage the organs responsible for sperm production.

In its letter to UN and local authorities, the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) reminded them that despite Polansky's urging, the UNHCR has refused to remove the affected Romani, and particularly children and pregnant women, from the camps in the absence of a permanent solution.

The World Health Organization also recommended in July that children and pregnant women be moved from the camps until confirmation of the routes of lead exposure were identified, Petrova pointed out.

The municipal authorities should end all smelting activities in the camps, and provide fresh water in the camps, the World Health Organization recommended.

"The ERRC is alarmed at the evident unwillingness on the part of the UNHCR and municipal authorities to take emergency steps in line with the recommendations of the WHO or to remove the displaced Romani families from the camps they established and which are now causing serious harms and threats of further extreme harms to the health of residents," Petrova writes in the letter.

In her letter, Petrova said the ERRC "has seen correspondence" indicating that the UN High Commission for Refugees regards municipal authorities as responsible for the camps.

The law firm demanded that all three agencies - two UN and one municipal - "take immediate actions" to move the Romani families to a safe living area and "arrange for the provision of all necessary medical treatment for all affected persons."

June 10, 2004 marked the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the ethnic cleansing of Roma, Ashkaelia, Egyptians and other persons regarded as "Gypsies" from Kosovo, the ERRC says.

After NATO action against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ended in June 1999, ethnic Albanians returned from abroad and "violently expelled approximately four fifths of Kosovo's pre-1999 Romani population - estimated to have been around 120,000 - from their homes," the ERRC says.

"In the course of the ethnic cleansing campaign, ethnic Albanians kidnapped Roma and severely physically abused and in some cases killed Roma; raped Romani women in the presence of family members; and seized, looted or destroyed property en masse. Whole Romani settlements were burned to the ground by ethnic Albanians, in many cases while NATO troops looked on," the advocacy law firm states.