Strengthening Information Exchange and Experiences Between Competent Authorities including Neighboring Countries for Lost, Stolen or Illicit Trafficked Radioactive Material in Uganda

In Uganda, radioactive sources is widely used for peaceful purposes in the medical, industrial, education and research. Such practices range from radiotherapy and nuclear medicine in the medical field to nuclear gauging, industrial radiography and well-logging in the industrial field, among others. Radioactive sources in the past have either got lost, stolen or illicitically trafficked by adversaries both knowingly and unknowingly with a few reported cases from competent authorities for example in 2002 the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (CIID) of the Uganda Police Force (UPF) impounded an old rusted Canister containing a Cobalt 60 source which was transferred to a bunker in a Referral Hospital for safe custody but later went missing in July 2007 and to date it has never been found. Similar cases were reported in 2003, 2008 and recently in 2015 when Uganda Revenue Authority (URA)-customs impounded a suspicious package containing rock samples of Uranium ore (as later identified by Atomic Energy Council) which was being trafficking to an unknown destination through the western Mpondwe border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. No arrests were made. Additionally, in 2015, during routine inspections by Atomic Energy Council (AEC) at an old abandoned Cobalt plant in western Uganda, 2 Cs-137 Nuclear gauges were found missing. The operator was in final stages of winding up business and the old mine appeared to be partially abandoned with a few security officers on site. A visual and physical search was conducted a week later by the AEC team but no sources were recovered. The case was reported by AEC to UPF-Counterterrorism department, and investigations are still on-going till today.