The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 with the use of depleted uranium was "an inhumane experiment" on the whole region of Western Balkans, which should be scientifically investigated, Serbian Health Minister Danica Grujicic said on Saturday, calling for a ban on such type of weapons
BELGRADE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th March, 2023) The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 with the use of depleted uranium was "an inhumane experiment" on the whole region of Western Balkans, which should be scientifically investigated, Serbian Health Minister Danica Grujicic said on Saturday, calling for a ban on such type of weapons.
"It was a horrible and inhumane experiment on the whole region, not only on Serbia and Montenegro. I hope that the international scientific community will understand that this (the bombing's consequences for human health) should be scientifically investigated and weapons with depleted uranium should be banned," Grujicic told the Radio Television of Serbia broadcaster.
The Serbian health minister also said that the bombing had resulted in a surge of oncological diseases, male infertility, pregnancy pathologies, autoimmune diseases, mental impairment in children born in this period and after the incident.
On Friday, state memorials started in the country's northwestern city of Sombor, where the first NATO air bomb fell on the evening of March 24, 1999. Several tens of thousands of Serbian citizens, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Prime Minister Ana Brnabic and Milorad Dodik, the Serbian member of Bosnia and Herzegovina's tripartite presidency, as well as members of the government gathered for the ceremony in the main square.
In 1999, an armed confrontation between Albanian separatists from the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Serbian army led to a bombing of what was then the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro, by NATO forces. The operation was undertaken without the approval of the UN Security Council and was based on allegations by Western countries that the Yugoslav authorities were carrying out ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians.. NATO airstrikes continued from March 24 to June 10, 1999 and claimed the lives of over 2,500 people, including 87 children.
