About 2.5 tons of natural uranium disappeared from a site in Libya, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported on Wednesday March 15 in a statement sent to Agence France-Presse.
During a visit on Tuesday, UN inspectors “discovered that ten containers with approximately 2.5 tonnes of natural uranium in the form of uranium concentrate (“yellow cake”) were not present there. where they had been declared by the authorities,” Director General Rafael Grossi wrote in a report to member states.
The IAEA specifies that it will carry out “additional” verifications to “clarify the circumstances of the disappearance of this nuclear material and its current location”. No details are given on the site in question.
Nuclear program abandoned in 2003
Libya abandoned its nuclear weapons development program in 2003 under former leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Since his fall from the latter in 2011, after forty-two years of dictatorship, the country has been bogged down in a major political crisis, with rival powers located in the East and West, a myriad of militias, scattered mercenaries in the country, against a backdrop of foreign interference.
Two governments are vying for power, one based in Tripoli and recognized by the UN, the other supported by the strongman of eastern Libya, Marshal Khalifa Haftar.
