IAEA scientists will specifically attempt to determine what befall of around 2000 barrels of nuclear waste and yellowcake, which were stockpiled in the looted plant and are dubbed by Iraqis as “death barrels”.

Looters had reportedly emptied the barrels and then resold them to unsuspecting locals who used them to store water and food.

Iraqi residents fear some of the barrels might have been washed in the nearby Tigris river, setting the stage for a massive health crisis as entire villages and towns may have been poisoned.

Iraqis, therefore, urged the Geneva-based IAEA to subject all residents of the area to thorough medical checks to verify possible contamination and poisoning cases.

Between 1991-92, Iraq transferred, under IAEA supervision, hundreds of tons of yellowcake from mines near the Iraqi-Syrian borders to Tuwaitha.

Yellowcake is the product of the uranium extraction process and is a mixture of uranium oxides that can vary in proportion and in color depending at which temperature the material was dried.

This fine powder is packaged in drums and sent to a conversion plant that produces uranium hexafluoride as the next step in the manufacture of nuclear fuel.

As the U.N. banned Iraqi from using such substance, IAEA teams frequently visited Tuwaitha plant to make sure the Iraqis were not using yellowcake to produce nuclear weapons.

Hussein Maqbar, a medical staffer of a nearby health care unit, told IslamOnline.net they have been receiving tens of strange cases ever since Tuwaitha plant was looted.

He asserted that as patients showed unusual symptoms that they were unable to diagnose, the doctors had to refer them to other well-equipped hospitals.

Maqbar, who bears 14 years of experience in the field, asserted that such cases were never reported before the U.S.-led invasion.

He attributed the strange symptoms to increasing radiation pollution, jeopardizing the lives of 150,000 Iraqi residents with several cancer diseases.

“Looters did not only steal yellowcake barrels but also aluminum tubes believed to include radioactive waste,” he told IOL, charging the tubes were being smuggled to northern Iraq and then to an undisclosed destination.

The medical staffer proposed evacuating all areas adjacent to the Tuwaitha plant to conduct a comprehensive and accurate survey to determine radiation levels and possible impacts on the residents.

The area engulfing the plant also hosts two Iraqi nuclear reactors, one pounded by Israel in 1981 and the other destroyed during the 1991 Gulf war.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Taha Hamad Darwish, imam of a nearby mosque, told IOL correspondent Iraqi residents were affected, to varying degrees, by the radiations.

He asserted that he was personally suffering from radioactive symptoms that puzzled local doctors.

Sheikh Darwish accused the American occupation forces of facilitating the looting of the Tuwaitha plant.

“When the American troops stormed the site, they destroyed the main gates,” he told IOL correspondent.

One soldier stood on an American tank and urged Iraqi residents, via loud speakers, to enter the plant and “retrieve your money and property stolen by tyrant Saddam,” he recalled.

Asked by IOL if he believed the act was deliberate, Sheikh Darwish said he really could not tell.