Bob Seddon, a Threat Mitigation Officer with United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in Libya, has said that “Libya has the world’s largest uncontrolled ammunition stockpile.”
“It is estimated that there are between 150,000 to 200,000 tons of uncontrolled munitions across Libya,” said Seddon during a meeting of mine action experts at the UN in Geneva.
He noted that he had never seen such high levels of weapons contamination in his 40-year career.
“Expenditure of ordnance and the threat posed by explosive remnants of war has increased, and sadly, many of the areas that were previously cleared of UXO have now been re-contaminated as a result of the fighting”, said Seddon.
The UNMAS expert insisted that “it’s the Libyan people that are facing the full impact” of protracted insecurity.
At UN-led talks earlier this month, head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya Ghassan Salame noted that there were at least 20 million “pieces of ordnance” in the country.
