Yemen confiscates over 600,000 weapons since August 2008 [15/April/2010]
The Source: sana'a/ hadhramaut.info/sabanews.net - 15/04/2010
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Yemen confiscated more than 600,000 weapons since August 2008 amid a tough campaign to ban the open carrying of weapons in the main cities of the country which started in 2007, Interior Ministry said on Thursday In a press release, the Ministry said that its security services had tightened control of the arms markets and their 111 stores which were shut down last year by the authorities, adding that these security measures were designed to prevent the closed markets to be transited to black arms markets.‘’About 250 arms dealers have been put under control in order not to involve illicit dealings of weapons’’, the Ministry confirmed.‘’The security authorities have developed a plan to eliminate this illegal trade in the provinces of the country, including tightening security controls on coastal cities to intensify surveillance at passages and prevent arms smuggling into the Yemeni territories.Meanwhile, a judicial source has denied media reports that Fares Mana’a, arms dealer, would be tried on charges of spying for an Arab country.The source said that these reports were baseless, accusing one of the wanted elements of publishing them.In October2009, Yemen circulated a blacklist of arms dealers, with Fares Mana’a on top of the blacklisted.In recent years, the authorities said thousands of people disarmed willingly and other thousands by the authorities as they launched anti-public weapon carrying drive.According to a recent poll, about 74 percent of the Yemeni people are wary of possessing guns and carrying them in public.97 percent of the surveyed people said they are for a law banning and organizing having and carrying weaponsAccording to the poll conducted by the Sana'a-based Yemeni Poll Center, most of the respondents said that the government must ban arms trade.Unofficial statistics show that there are over 60 million firearms in Yemen, which means that on average there are three firearms for a Yemeni citizen.The authorities have began a campaign to hunt down the most prominent arms dealers operating in the country, and they have so far arrested 4 arms dealers included on this blacklist of 20 names.Approximately two years ago, the Yemeni authorities launched a large scale operation to shut down weapons markets, and they have been successful in shutting down the largest and best known arms markets throughout the country.
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