The
marchers demanded that the government halt food production
in contaminated areas and increase compensation to people
living in those areas and to individuals who cleaned up
the spill and have suffered health problems as a result.
Belarus
officials had not authorized the march, and police tried
to stop it, Agence France-Presse reported.
According
to some estimates, 25,000 people have died due to the effects
of the 1986 disaster, when the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
exploded, contaminating northern Ukraine and parts of Belarus
and Russia. Twenty-three percent of Belarus, home to about
1.5 million people, remains contaminated (AFP/Yahoo! News,
April 27). Nearly 8.4 million people were exposed to radiation
from the accident.
The
United Nations yesterday urged continued international support
for victims of the disaster, and said it is focusing on
sustainable recovery and development projects in the region.
"The
aftermath of the Chernobyl accident is simply too much for
people in the contaminated areas to cope with alone,"
said U.N. Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland,
who is also the organization's coordinator of international
cooperation on Chernobyl. "We simply cannot turn our
backs. We can and must do more to help bring development
and hope to the affected people" (U.N. release, April
26).
The
International Atomic Energy Agency has established the Chernobyl
forum to help clarify the scope and effects of the disaster,
Reuters reported.
"We
have an epistemological problem," said Abel Gonzalez,
head of radiation and waste safety at the IAEA. "In
Chernobyl, you can say that the only concrete persons that
you can (identify) are the (1,800) children who got thyroid
cancer and the workers who were overexposed. All the rest,
we don't know."
Thousands
of people may have developed cancer and died as a result
of the disaster, but poor records and corruption have prevented
the accurate registration of workers who helped clean up
after the disaster. Contradictory statements and studies
on Chernobyl have also confused millions of people in affected
regions, leading some individuals to attribute unrelated
illnesses to the spill.
The
forum will bring together Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, along
with the IAEA and other U.N. agencies, to review studies
and statements on the disaster and present a clear summary
to next year's U.N. General Assembly (Louis Charbonneau,
Reuters/Planet Ark, April 27).
AFP
reports that despite the Chernobyl accident, ecological
movements remain virtually nonexistent in Ukraine, which
still relies on nuclear energy.
Although
cases of thyroid cancer have increased tenfold since the
1986 spill, most people in the former Soviet state are more
concerned with daily survival than environmental issues,
AFP said. According to a recent poll, environmental problems
were listed 12th on the population's list of priorities.
The
country still has more than a dozen reactors in four power
stations, and a plan to build three nuclear reactors on
the Russian-designed VVER model - the safety of which has
been questioned - has met little resistance.
Ukraine's
Green party, meanwhile, has little support from voters,
who see it as colluding with industrial bosses, according
to analysts (AFP/Terra Daily, April 26).
Published
in UN wire. Copyright, National Journal Group, Year.
