Roma refugees in Kosovo demonstrate for belated evacuation and closure of lead-contaminated Osterode and Cesmin Lug/Cesmin Llug refugee camps

PRESS INVITATION

On International Roma Day, this Wednesday 8 April , approximately 200 Roma in Kosovo supported by Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (GfbV) / Society for Threatened Peoples International and the London-based Kosovo Medical Emergency Group (KMEG) will hold a vigil outside the Osterode and Cesmin Lug/Cesmin Llug refugee camps in order to draw attention to the intolerable living conditions and their demand for the camps to be evacuated. They will light candles in memory of 81 Roma who have died there over the years. The Roma believe that their families living in the two heavy metals-contaminated refugee camps in North Mitrovicë / North Mitrovica are under sentence of death. The camps were established by the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR on waste from a former lead mine. Roma, Ashkali and Kosovo-Egyptians were housed in the camps in 1999 after being subjected to violent attacks by extremist Albanians at the end of the NATO intervention in Kosovo. Today 560 Roma are still condemned to live in Osterode and Cesmin Lug/Cesmin Llug.

We invite your correspondents in Kosovo to join the Roma refugees for this vigil on Wednesday 8 April 2009,

in North Mitrovicë / North Mitrovica KOSOVO

Camp residents accuse the United Nations (UN) of failing to take action to protect them against being poisoned by heavy metal pollution. Ten years ago Dr Bernard Kouchner, formerly Director of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and now France's Foreign Minister, promised to close down all the refugee camps within 45 days. All residents unable to return home to the Roma quarter (mahala) in South Mitrovicë / South Mitrovica, within that time were to be evacuated to another location outside Kosovo. In November 2000 UN doctors advised the Director of UNMIK that the refugees should be evacuated immediately because the blood lead levels measured in children were life-threatening. Dr Kouchner ignored this recommendation. In 2004 and 2008 the World Health Organisation (WHO) also recommended that the camps be urgently closed.

"We want evacuation and medical treatment!", says Roma leader Skender Gushani: "Why have we been condemned - first by the UN and now by the government of Kosovo - to live out our lives on this killing field? We are living in hell!"

For further information please contact Jasna Causevic, GfbV/STP's South-Eastern Europe Desk Officer (+49 (0)551 49906 16), Paul Polansky, leader of the GfbV/STP team in Kosovo (Tel.

+381 645 283 278) or Bernard Sullivan, Kosovo Medical Emergency Group (currently in Kosovo - e-mail: pjpusa50401@yahoo.com)