In its rush to proclaim its assignment a success, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo is ignoring - or coving up - a medical tragedy there for which it is directly responsible. At three camps built by the UN High Commission for Refugees, some 60 Gypsy children under the age of six have been exposed to such high levels of lead that they are highly likely to die soon or to suffer irreversible brain damage. This number represents every child born in the camps since they were built five and a half years ago.

"People who lived on these toxic wastelands were sacrificed for human studies, that's what the scientists and researchers did in the past. But now the international humanitarian agencies should know better than to build camps on toxic waste."

Dr. Rohko Kim
world expert on lead poisoning from an interview about his February 2005 special mission to Kosovo

KOSOVO ROMA REFUGEE FOUNDATION

In July 2000, WHO (the World Health Organization) urgently appealed to the UN administration in Kosovo to close their three Roma (gypsy) IDP (internally displaced peoples) camps in the Mitrovica area because they had been built on highly toxic waste land.
Six years and 29 deaths later, the UN has still not evacuated these camps, nor sought medical treatment for the life-threatening lead levels in the blood of those living there, especially the most vulnerable: pregnant women and children under the age of six years.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Society the Threatened Peoples, Refugees International (and many other humanitarian organizations) have demanded in writing to the UN the immediate evacuated of these three camps were every child conceived will suffer irreversible brain damage.

We hope you will join us so that greater pressure can be put on the UN to evacuate these camps and seek medical treatment, at least for the pregnant women and children.