VIENNA (Reuters) – Most of the 2.5 tonnes of natural uranium that went missing earlier this month from a site in Libya has been found there, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said. ) in a statement to its member states seen by Reuters.
The IAEA reported last week in a confidential statement sent to its member states that a team of inspectors had found that 2.5 tons of uranium were missing from an unidentified Libyan site.
The forces controlling eastern Libya announced the next day that they had found the missing two tons of uranium near the warehouse in the south of the country where they were stored.
The IAEA carried out a new inspection on Tuesday and found that “only a relatively small part of natural uranium was still missing”, it said in the press release on Friday.
“The officers in charge of the inspection observed that containers which were not present on the site at the time of the previous inspection had been brought back and left near the site”, it was said.
“Agency inspectors confirmed that natural uranium was in these containers and witnessed their transfer inside the site for storage,” it added in the press release.
(Report Francois Murphy; French version Camille Raynaud)
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