Germany declares completion of destruction of Libya chemical weapons

The international community had feared that the 500 tons of chemicals could fall into the hands of “extremist groups or rogue states after Gaddafi was ousted in 2011 and the country fell into chaos afterwards.” According to a report by Deutsche Welle.

Germany’s Foreign and Defence Ministries said on Friday that the chemicals had been destroyed “successfully and in an environmentally sustainable manner” by a state-owned specialist firm, GEKA, which is based in Munster, south of Hamburg, the report added.

The cost of destroying the chemicals was shared by Germany and the United States.

Last year, Libya made a formal request to the UN-backed Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for international assistance to have the chemical weapons removed.

In 2004, Libya joined the Chemical Weapons Convention which required chemical weapons be destroyed in the country. When it began destroying its chemical weapons stocks at the time, Libya declared that it had 24.7 tons of mustard gas, 1,390 tons of precursor chemicals and over 3,000 bombs containing chemical weapons.