IAEA Team Inspects Uranium Storage Site South Libya

A cleaning staff works before a news conference attended by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, September 13, 2021. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
A cleaning staff works before a news conference attended by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, September 13, 2021. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
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IAEA Team Inspects Uranium Storage Site South Libya

A cleaning staff works before a news conference attended by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, September 13, 2021. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
A cleaning staff works before a news conference attended by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, September 13, 2021. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived Tuesday in southern Libya to inspect a natural uranium storage site containing 6,400 barrels, Fawasel media reported.

The site said the IAEA team arrived in Sabha airport in southern Libya coming from Vienna.

“The team left Libya after completing the inspection process for the uranium in Libya,” Fawasel said, adding that the UN inspectors also visited many other sites in the south.

Last week, Gen Khaled al-Mahjoub, head of a media unit for the Libyan National Army, the main eastern military force, said that a military team had found 2.5 tons of radioactive uranium.

His comments came after the director general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, told the organization’s member states that inspectors had found that 10 drums containing approximately 2.5 tons of uranium ore concentrate “were not present as previously declared”.

The Libyan General said 10 missing barrels had been recovered about 5 km from the warehouse, near the border with Chad.

Mahjoub suggested that they were stolen by Chadian forces who mistook them for ammunition or weapons, then abandoned them when they realized the drums were of little use.

He said the Chadian forces raided the warehouse and may have taken the barrels hoping they contained weapons or ammunition.



Iraq Reports 19 Congo Fever Deaths Already This Year

A general view of Baghdad, Iraq. (Reuters file photo)
A general view of Baghdad, Iraq. (Reuters file photo)
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Iraq Reports 19 Congo Fever Deaths Already This Year

A general view of Baghdad, Iraq. (Reuters file photo)
A general view of Baghdad, Iraq. (Reuters file photo)

Iraq said Thursday it has recorded 19 deaths from Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever already this year and urged farmers and abattoir workers to step up precautions when handling livestock.

A total of 123 cases have been recorded nationwide, health ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr said in a statement, adding that 36 of them were reported in the poor southern province of Dhi Qar, which is heavily dependent on livestock farming.

Congo fever is a viral disease which is transmitted to people either by tick bites or through contact with infected animal blood or tissues during or immediately after slaughter, according to the World Health Organization, AFP reported.

It has a fatality rate of between 10 and 40 percent, and most cases have been reported in the livestock industry.

A previous surge in infections in Iraq in 2022 saw at least 27 deaths, compared with just six cases for the two decades from 1989 to 2009.

The WHO attributed that flare-up to a rise in the tick population resulting from the failure to carry out pesticide spraying campaigns in 2020 and 2021.