PRISTINA: The UN's top official in Kosovo on Thursday expressed regret over the relocation of hundreds of Roma to camps polluted with harmful toxins in the late 1990s, when Kosovo was run by the world body.
Zahir Tanin, chief of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), expressed "regret regarding the adverse health conditions" experienced by those relocated to five North Kosovo camps near a mine smelter used to store poisonous lead and zinc waste.
The Roma, numbering around 600, had previously lived in the southern part of Mitrovica city, but fled to the northern half as a result of inter-ethnic violence and the destruction of their homes immediately after Kosovo's 1998-1999 war.
In 2008, a group of 138 Roma who lived in the camps filed a complaint saying they had suffered lead poisoning and other health problems because of soil contamination and generally poor hygiene and living conditions.
About half of those who filed the complaint were children, and at least 13 were women who delivered babies in the camps and complained on behalf of their children.
An investigation by human rights watchdogs claimed the lead caused irreparable brain damage in children.
A UNMIK statement said Tanin was "carefully examining" the findings of a UN human rights panel that said there had been a "failure by the UNMIK administration in the past to comply with the applicable human rights standards".
Tanin also brought the matter of compensation to the attention of the UN headquarters, the statement said.
Kosovo's conflict, which pitted pro-independence ethnic Albanians against Serb forces, ended after a NATO bombing campaign against Serbia.
Kosovo subsequently became a protectorate under UN administration.
The Roma were seen as Serbian regime "collaborators" by ethnic Albanian extremists, who threatened them with revenge attacks after the NATO campaign.
The UN administration came to an end when Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008. Belgrade refuses to recognise the sovereignty of its former province.
The camps were demolished in 2010.
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