Some 2.5 tons of natural uranium stored in a site in war-torn Libya have gone missing, the United Nations nuclear watchdog says, raising safety and proliferation concerns. Natural uranium can't immediately be used for energy production or bomb fuel.
Reuters first reported on the IAEA warning about the missing Libyan uranium, saying the IAEA told members reaching the site that’s not under government control required “complex logistics.”
One such declared site is Sabha, some 660 kilometers southeast of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, in the country’s lawless southern reaches of the Sahara Desert. There, Libya under dictator Moammar Qadhafi stored thousands of barrels of so-called yellowcake uranium for a once-planned uranium conversion facility that was never built in his decadeslong secret weapons program.
“Stressing that Libya viewed the question as primarily a commercial one, noted that prices for uranium yellowcake on the world market had been increasing, and that Libya wanted to maximize its profit by properly timing the sale of its stockpile,” then-Ambassador Gene A. Cretz wrote.But the 2011 Arab Spring saw rebels topple Qadhafi and ultimately kill him. Sabha grew increasingly lawless, with African migrants crossing Libya, saying some had been sold as slaves in the city, the U.N. reported.
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