MADRID At least eight cases of cancer two of them fatal have emerged in recent months among Spanish soldiers and volunteers who served in Bosnia and Kosovo, Spanish press reported on Saturday.

The cases follow the brewing row over Balkan War Syndrome an alleged increase in the incidence of cancer among forces who served in the region that some are blaming on the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions.

Two of the newly reported Spanish cancer sufferers have already died.

One soldier, Legionnaire Jose Luis Martos, died of stomach cancer which spread to his bones shortly after his return from Mostar in Bosnia, where he served as an ambulance driver.

The other soldier served in a logistical corps in Macedonia and made frequent sorties into Kosovo about a year after U.S. NATO troops used DU weapons in air raids on the province.

Of the six other cases, five are soldiers and one an aid worker, according to the Spanish daily ****El Mundo****.

One of the sources cited by the paper is the Spanish Soldiers' Defense Bureau, which campaigns for improved conditions for the military.

The organization confirmed on Friday that it was looking into 20 suspected cases of either cancer, or serious skin and intestinal problems reported among Kosovo and Bosnia conflict veterans.

Former Balkans peacekeepers from several European countries have contracted cancers, including the bone marrow cancer leukemia. Their families and veterans' groups blame the diseases on DU munitions.

According to AFP the material gives off relatively low levels of radiation, but it can be dangerous if ingested, inhaled or if it enters the body through cuts or wounds.

Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal all called on NATO this week to provide additional information on the DU projectiles and their potential health impact.

Six Italian soldiers, four Belgians, two Dutch, a Portuguese and a Czech have died from leukemia since returning from the region. Four French soldiers have also contracted the disease.

Germany says tests carried out on its veterans over the last 12 months have not revealed any radiation-linked illnesses.

Health experts were examining the effects of uranium dust on public health in Kosovo Saturday, after the head of a UN scientific team repeated warnings that local people and mine-clearers could be at risk.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said that it had found no evidence of an increased risk of leukemia in the province nor that the disease could be linked to the use of DU shells by U.S. jets during the 1998 Kosovo conflict.

But research was continuing, after the head of a UN team which found Depleted Uranium at eight sites warned that landmine clearance could stir up toxic dust, and that people, often children, collecting war souvenirs ran an increased risk from radiation.

Further controversy will be stirred by reports that two Spanish soldiers have joined the growing list of Balkans veterans to have died from leukemia and an admission from NATO-led peacekeepers that they had ignored advice to mark potentially contaminated sites.

Figures released by the who showed no increase in leukemia since the conflict: Some 38 cases were recorded in 1997, 45 in 1998, 32 in 1999 and 33 in 2000.

"We have no information that confirms the hypothesis that DU is linked to leukemia," Erik Shouten, the head of the WHO mission to the province told AFP.

Shouten said that his mission had consulted Pristina University Hospital, the only one in Kosovo to which leukemia cases would normally be referred, but added said that the figures were preliminary results for cases in adults over 15 years old.

More results would be released next week after public health experts had talked to doctors in Kosovo's district hospitals and looked at the data for children, he said.

The head of a United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) team which inspected sites of DU shell strikes last year, Pekka Haavisto, told the BBC: "If you explode mines in the areas where there is DU ammunition in the ground, you probably also explode again some DU ammunition and inhale this type of dust."

"So you cannot totally exclude the possibility that people can sometimes suffer serious health effects from this type of ammunition," he added.

It was announced yesterday that sites in Kosovo struck by DU shells have not been marked despite a recommendation from UN scientists that they be sealed off. A spokesman for the province's NATO-led peacekeepers said Saturday that a team from the UNEP recommended in November last year that some 112 sites identified by NATO as having been targeted by U.S. jets during the alliance 1998 air war against Yugoslavia be marked.

"They have not been marked," said Major Steven Shappell, chief spokesman for the KFOR peacekeeping force. He did not say why this was.