Britain's royal navy is phasing out depleted uranium ammunition used on 14 of its warships after the US manufacturers stopped producing the shells, the British defence ministry said last night.
The American producer took the step because it was concerned over the safety of the uranium ammunition, which has been linked by ex-servicemen to certain types of cancer, according to The Timesnewspaper.
The munitions are used in the US-designed Phalanx anti-missile system, which is fitted to the Royal navy's Type 42 destroyers and three other vessels.
The report said the US navy had been phasing out stocks for around a decade, replacing the projectiles with tungsten-tipped ammunition, which is not radioactive and far less toxic.
The newspaper quoted an American Naval Sea Systems Command document written in 1989 as saying: "The tungsten penetrator provides improved round effectiveness while eliminating safety and environmental problems associated with depleted uranium (DU)."
A defence ministry spokesman said the Americans' decision to cease manufacturing the munitions meant the Royal navy had no choice but to phase them out.
Veterans groups and families of soldiers are blaming the use of depleted uranium munitions by NATO troops for a spate of cancer cases among former Balkan peacekeepers.
Independentcorrespondent Mr Robert Fisk has reported that up to 300 Serb refugees whose Hadjici suburb of Sarajevo was attacked by NATO jets in 1995 have died of cancer.
Mr Fisk, writing from Bratunac in eastern Bosnia, said all the surviving refugees believe the cancers that have affected people from the district were caused because the US A-10 bombers which struck their factories were firing depleted uranium rounds.
Both Washington and London maintain that there is no scientific evidence to prove depleted uranium munitions - used by US forces in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and in the 1994-95 conflict in Bosnia - cause cancer.
AFP