Society For Threatened People-International submits to the "International Conference on the Decade of Roma Inclusion” its Memorandum on the issue of lead poisoning of Roma in four IDP camps in Kosovo

On the day of the official launch of the Decade of Roma Inclusion, which takes place on February 2nd, 2005 in Sofia, Bulgaria, the SFTPInternational is accusing the UNHCR and the UNMIK of failing for years to take action against the subtle lead poisoning of Roma settled on four Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Kosovo.

The IDP camps in the municipalities of Cesmin Lug, Kablare (North-Mitrovica), Zitkovac (Zvecani), and Leposavic were set up in 1999 on waste land polluted with mining residues. Toxic dust spreads across the camps and is easily breathed in. It settles everywhere, including on foodstuff, and thus also gets ingested by the refugees.

"According to the report from the WHO from July 11th, 2004, 744 Roma families are inevitably exposed to lead poisoning,” excoriates Tilman Zülch, President of the SFTP-International. "The highest levels of lead in blood were detected among young children. Twelve children between two and three years old are severely sick. A three year-old child has already died. The head of our SFTP-International team in Kosovo, Paul Polansky, has been protesting unremettingly since September 1999 and, recently, on January 27, 2005 against these abuses. Yet, nothing is happening.”

"It is intolerable,” says Zülch, "that six years after the liberation of the Albanian people by international forces, Roma and Aschkali are still confined in refugee camps.”

The Roma and Aschkhali minority of Kosovo is the most persecuted group of the Kosovo war. 130,000 of the 150,000 members of the minority were driven out of the region whether through murder, rape, kidnapping, torture, and, today still, through racist persecution. While 10,000 Albanian houses were being rebuilt after the war, NATO and KFOR troups watched passively how 14,000 of the 19,000 Roma and Aschkali houses and 75 of their neighbourhoods and villages were destroyed. The international society, as of now, has only rebuilt 200 houses. "Obviously, the UNHCR and the UNMIK are still oriented towards the romantic image of gypsies from the previous century and consider it normal to leave Roma and Aschkali decay on contaminated soil.”

The SFTP-International demands that the conference takes immediate action to dismantle the camps and evacuate its occupants from this contaminated area, to design a durable solution to accomodate the Roma and Aschkali minorities in an available and safe settlement, and to guarantee the refugees adequate humanitarian and medical assistance by an international team of doctors.

Tilman Zülch can be contacted at: (+49) 0151 15 30 98 88

2-page-memorandum to follow