Trepça is a large silver and zinc-lead mining and smelting complex in Mitrovica, Kosovo [1]. Trepça furthermore, is one of the most contaminating mines in the country releasing huge amounts of lead and other heavy-metal toxins in the surrounding environment [2]. The ground around the complex has been gouged open by water streaming down the slag-heap and black lines of lead and zinc deposits can be clearly seen. The ground is ravaged by toxins [6]. 

Trepça was supposed to be a "temporary" settlement for the Roma [3] [6]. However, the Roma stayed on the lead contaminated UN camps  for 14 years (until 2013) [5] [10]. By placing Roma families next to a toxic slagheap, onto land highly contaminated with lead, zinc, arsenic, and other metals, has caused dozens of families to suffer severe health problems and spawned a generation of brain-damaged children [6].

"Here everything is poison". The camps are surrounded with  tonnes of toxic tailings with on open buckets of drinking water [6]. The Roma, including children, have so much lead in their food and drinking water that it leaches from their teeth and rots their gums [6]. 

Other symptoms of lead poisoning include disordered behavior, nervousness, dizziness, vomiting, and high fever [6]. The children swing between bursts of nervous hyperactivity and moody depression; they have fainting spells and epileptic fits. According to internationally accepted benchmarks drawn up by the United States Centers for Disease Control, 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter (mcg/dl) of blood cause the beginning of brain damage [6].

When the World Health Organization tested the Romas’ blood for lead in 2008, the readings for twenty-one of fifty-three children showed lead levels of 65 mcg/dl, which is the highest level the machine can measure [6]. 

Such children fall into the category of “acute medical emergency” and under "normal" circumstances require immediate hospitalization. Instead Roma have remained in the camps, ingesting lead through the air, through the dirt, through their food. Even before their birth, lead enters their bodies through the water their mothers drink [6]. Lead attacks the immune system, resulting in secondary illnesses that are often the official cause of death—if a cause is determined at all [6].

“These camps are genocide. “I know of eighty people who have died in the camps from lead. Roma  have to be immediately evacuated from the camps and medically treated", an activist stated [6].

Chief of Mission, UNHCR, Pristina stated: “Unfortunately, we have been unable to find an alternative site because no country want them” [6]. The task force came up with the idea of moving the Roma temporarily to the KFOR-donated barracks in its former military camp, before returning them to the reconstructed Roma Mahalla-settlemnet. The military camp was determined to be more "lead safe," despite also being located next to the toxic slag heaps. While thinking of "offering better living conditions" than the lead camps, this solution did not move the Roma from the center of contamination - not seeing the point of moving the Roma to a location just 150 meters away [7].

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights visited the camps and claimed: “It is sad the international community has not found a solution ten years later" [6]. A pediatrician working with Roma children in the camps furthermore added: "Lead poisoning takes a long time to treat but not as long as the politics of treatment" [6]. 

The Roma are not considered refugees by the UN but “internally displaced people.” That means they do not fit the UN’s criteria for financing their resettlement abroad. Even if the Roma were classified as refugees, however, it would be difficult to find countries willing to accept them [6].

In the camps Roma  had no access to running water, only a few hours of electricity per day, a poor diet, and could not maintain adequate personal hygiene. At the same time, the proximity of the camps to Trepca and especially the slag heaps of leaded soil exposed them to lead contamination by air, water, and soil [7]. 

UNMIK - the UN body that was the effective civil authority in Kosovo from 1999 to 2008, commissioned a report in November 2000 to provide recommendations on how to assess risk and means of mitigation. The report recommended comprehensive epidemiological studies, periodic environmental sampling, and robust medical monitoring and medical treatment for Roma. However, the report concluded that the costs of any such strategy exceeded the financial capacities of UNMIK. During the period 2000-04, no further steps were taken from the UNMIK to address the issue of contamination in the camps [7]. 

According to recent testimonies, many of those affected, including children, are still experiencing a myriad of health problems, including seizures, kidney disease, and memory loss – all common long-term effects of lead poisoning [11].