Containers containing about 2.5 tons of natural uranium have been found missing from a facility in Libya by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a military general in an eastern Libyan camp said on Thursday.
General Khaled al-Mahjoub, commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA) Forces Communications Directorate of East Libyan leader Khalifa Haftar, said on his Facebook page that the containers were found “only five kilometers” from where they were stored. in the Sebha region in southern Libya.
He posted a video of a man in a protective suit counting in English 18 blue containers representing all the uranium stored at the site.
“The situation is under control, the IAEA has been informed,” General Mahjoub told AFP.
In a Facebook post, Gen. Mahjoub said that after the containers were discovered missing during a visit by IAEA inspectors, “the LNA armed forces found them just five kilometers from the field in the direction of the border with Chad.”
In his assessment, the containers were stolen before they were abandoned by “a faction of Chad believing they were weapons or ammunition”.
Taking advantage of the chaos and porous borders, several Chadian and Sudanese groups have established their rear bases in southern Libya, in the neighborhood of their countries, to engage in various smuggling.
On Wednesday, the IAEA reported the disappearance of about 2.5 tons of natural uranium from a facility in Libya, according to a statement sent to AFP.
During a visit on Tuesday, UN agency inspectors “found that 10 containers of approximately 2.5 tons of natural uranium concentrate (NUC, also referred to as yellow pie) were not where they had been declared by the authorities. ,” CEO Rafael Grossi wrote in a report to Member States.
The IAEA said it would conduct “additional” investigations to “determine the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of this nuclear material and its current location.”