Four of these have been fenced off and declared public health risks. Since NATO's bombing ended in June 1999, a number of reports from international agencies have examined the environmental impact of the NATO bombing. In several instances, these studies have supported NATO's contention that the consequences are negligible. In the first visit of the United Nations Environmental Program to Serbia weeks after the attacks ended, the agency declared they found no negative impact of the use of depleted uranium. When asked what methodology was used to search for DU contamination, the head of the delegation, Pekka Havisto, said they had taken random soil samples in Serbia.
Scientists here say that's like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Eventually NATO released the map of 112 sites in Kosovo, most likely a fraction of the actual total. Now, almost two years after the bombing campaign started, the UN has begun analyzing the areas. But that's just Kosovo. The rest of Serbia remains in the dark because of NATO's refusal to make public the full extent of its DU use. Without a highly detailed map of areas hit by depleted uranium, future health consequences may be the only way to discover where measures might have been taken to prevent further tragedies.