Environmental group Greenpeace called Tuesday on the US-led coalition governing Iraq to clean up villages surrounding a nuclear site outside Baghdad that have been contaminated by �frightening levels� of radioactive material.
Carrying Arabic and English banners that read �Al Tuwaitha � nuclear disaster. Act now!� Greenpeace activists returned a large uranium �yellowcake� mixing canister to US troops stationed inside the nuclear plant, 20 kilometres east of the capital.
The canister � the size of a small car � contained significant quantities of radioactive yellowcake and had been left open and unattended for more than 20 days on a busy section of open ground near the Tuwaitha plant, Greenpeace said.
�No one cares about us. We are dying slowly. Our whole neighbourhood is contaminated. Although Greenpeace came, it is too late,� said Tareq Al Obeidi, a 41-year-old Tuwaitha city council member.
Agence France Presse(AFP)
Jordan Times June 25, 2003
