Pancevo, Yugoslavia, a city 10 miles northeast of Belgrade, seems to have suffered the worst environmental damage from NATO’s bombing campaign. Doctors privately recommended that all women who were in town the night of April 18 — when bombs destroyed a refinery, fertilizer plant, and petrochemical complex, releasing a dense, toxic cloud — avoid pregnancy for at least two years. Women who were less than nine weeks pregnant at the time were advised to get an abortion, and most complied. More environmental problems are expected to grip the nation this winter, when people will burn wood to heat their homes, since most power plants and oil refineries were disabled by NATO bombs.
