Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has launched an immediate internal investigation backed by outside expertise to determine how potentially hazardous material removed by United Nations arms inspectors from Iraq in 1996 ended up in a UN office instead of a properly equipped laboratory and remained there undetected for the past 11 years.

Several small containers of potentially hazardous chemicals, originating from an Iraqi chemical facility, have been found in a UN building but posed no immediate risk, a UN spokesperson said at the United Nations.