A Libyan general said on Thursday that the 2.5 tons of uranium that had disappeared the previous day had been found just a few kilometers from the deposit in eastern Libya.
Containers containing about 2.5 tons of natural uranium reported missing by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at a site in Libya have been found, a general in the country’s armed forces said on Thursday in the eastern Libyan camp.
General Khaled al-Mahjoub, commander of the Communications Directorate of East Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) forces, said on his Facebook page that the containers were found “barely five kilometers” from where they were stored were in the Sebha region of southern Libya.
He released a video showing a man in a hazmat suit counting 18 blue containers in English, representing all the uranium stored at the site.
“The situation is under control, the IAEA has been informed,” Gen Mahjoub told AFP.
The trace of a flight
In his Facebook post, Gen Mahjoub claimed that after the containers were found missing during a visit by IAEA inspectors, “an LNA armed force found them just five kilometers from the storage site towards the Chadian border”.
He estimated the containers were stolen before being left behind “by a Chadian faction who believed they were arms or ammunition”.
Taking advantage of the chaos and porous borders, several Chadian and Sudanese factions have set up their rear bases in southern Libya, bordering their countries, to engage in trade.
The IAEA on Wednesday reported the disappearance of about 2.5 tons of natural uranium from a site in Libya, according to a statement shared with AFP.
During a visit on Tuesday, inspectors from the UN body “found that 10 containers containing about 2.5 tons of natural uranium in the form of uranium concentrate (UOC, also known as ‘yellow cake’) were not present where declared by the authorities were,” Director General Rafael Grossi wrote in a report to member states.
The IAEA said it would conduct “additional” investigations to “clarify the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of this nuclear material and its current location.”