Locals ill after nuclear looting

2003-06-07 14:48

Tuwaitha, Iraq - UN nuclear experts began inspecting Iraq's largest nuclear facility on Saturday amid fears that thousands of local residents may have been poisoned as a result of looting at the site.

The Tuwaitha plant outside Baghdad was ransacked in the aftermath of the war and there are fears that local farms as well as the water supply may have been contaminated in the post-war chaos.

It is the first time UN monitors, who returned to Iraq on Friday, have been inside the country since they pulled out nearly three months ago in the run-up to the war that brought down Saddam Hussein.

The seven scientists from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are not arms inspectors and will not be hunting for Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the pretext for the US-led war launched on March 20.

Instead they will carry out a limited two-week mission to inspect the looting at the site, which was last inventoried by UN teams in December, to see what kinds of materials may have been spilled or stolen.

Contaminated barrels sold to unsuspecting locals

Residents told AFP the looters emptied barrels from the facility and then resold them to unsuspecting locals who had been kept in the dark about Saddam's nuclear programme.

They said the barrels were used to store water and food and were also washed in the nearby Tigris river, setting the stage for a massive health crisis.

Entire villages and towns may have been poisoned and locals said that, after being alerted by the presence of international media in recent weeks, they now fear the worst.

"The water tastes funny, like chemicals, and it smells very strange," said 43-year-old Kudair Ahmed, a local fruit merchant. "I have nine children. They have all drunk the water and they all got sick."

US downplays fears

The United States was opposed to the return of the IAEA, which previously monitored Saddam's nuclear programme, after it went to war without the support of the UN Security Council, and is keeping the inspectors on a tight rein.

US officers pushed reporters back from the site after the experts arrived in a convoy of military vehicles under strict security.

The US-led coalition has come under heavy criticism for not doing more to stop the looting but a spokesman in Baghdad told reporters that there was minimal risk from the Tuwaitha plant.

"Our initial assessment is that the risk for health effects is not large," the military spokesman said. "We have had folks there at the site, my deputy went there and his teeth are still there, and his hair is still in."

Tuwaitha housed tonnes of uranium as well as a by-product known as yellowcake, which was believed to have been dumped at the site in the orgy of looting that followed the downfall of Saddam's regime on April 9.

The spokesman said the yellowcake previously inventoried was believed still to be at the site but anxious residents told AFP they feared their families and children might have been exposed to other contamination.

"We don't buy milk, cheese or yoghurt from around here anymore. Even the vegetables are dangerous," said 25-year-old Ahmad Hussein, who is married with two young sons. "We go to Baghdad to buy our groceries."

In particular, adults have also not been always able to convince their young children, sweltering in the heat of an Iraqi summer, not to cool themselves in the waters of the Tigris.

"My parents and teachers told me this is a dangerous area but I don't care," said 12-year-old Mohammad Abdul Wanass, surrounded by friends who all said they regularly went for a dip in the river.

"We're not afraid of pollution or disease. If we can't swim in this river, they should give us another one."

Coalition forces have been repurchasing the barrels from residents and the spokesman said that they were doing everything they could to alert locals to the danger.

"We are trying to ... make sure that people are aware of the hazards and that, if they have something, that they turn it in," he said.

But many here said they were still unaware of the dangers two months after the US-led coalition brought down Saddam's regime.

One man shopping at Tuwaitha market on Saturday morning told AFP: "I haven't heard anything about it." He bought a bag of apples and walked away. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA