- By Robert Plummer
- BBC News
March 16, 2023 at 4:01 p.m. GMT
Updated 53 minutes ago
video caption,
The video shows an officer inspecting barrels said to contain uranium ore
Forces in eastern Libya say they have found about two and a half tons of uranium ore that has been reported missing by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Ten barrels of ore were found near the border with Chad, the head of the armed forces’ media unit said.
The IAEA said it was “actively working to review media reports”.
The agency sounded the alarm after its inspectors visited the undisclosed location earlier this week.
The area was not in government-controlled territory.
Since Libya’s former leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was ousted in 2011, the country has been divided into competing political and military factions.
It is now split between an internationally recognized interim government in the capital, Tripoli, and another in the east, led by General Khalifa Haftar.
Neither has control of the south where the uranium was extracted.
Thursday’s statement came from the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army, the military power that backs the eastern Libyan government.
General Khaled al-Mahjoub, commander of his communications department, said the uranium containers were found “barely five kilometers away”. [three miles]’ from where they had been stored in southern Libya.
The uranium is not radioactive in its current form.
The IAEA says the site has been difficult to reach recently.
Inspectors wanted to visit the site last year, but the trip had to be postponed because of fighting between rival Libyan militias.
Many foreign governments and groups have struggled for influence in Libya since NATO-backed forces toppled Col Gaddafi. These include Russia’s Wagner Group and Islamic State militants.
The oil-rich country is largely lawless and has previously been dubbed the “arms bazaar.”
In 2013, the UN reported that arms smuggled out of Libya were fueling conflicts in other parts of Africa and the Middle East.
However, experts told the BBC that the missing uranium could not be processed into a nuclear weapon in its current form.