Lead poisoning in IDP camps for displaced Roma in Kosovo

In Mitrovica, a Kosovo city divided between an Albanian south and a Serbian north, hundreds of Roma have been living since 1999 in camps for internally displaced people that were built on soil contaminated with lead and other heavy metals, remnants of processing ores at the nearby Trepca mining complex. Lead poisoning can cause neurological damage that can be irreversible, particularly in young children, and in the past the highest blood lead levels in medical history were determined in these camps. Although the Trepca smelter was shut down by the UN in 2000, the soil was never cleaned up and winds continue to blow toxic dust to the camps.