Citation(s) from the GunPolicy.org literature library
Florquin, Nicolas, Sigrid Lipott, and Francis Wairagu. 2019 ‘Excerpts on Trafficking - Cameroon.’ Weapons Compass: Mapping Illicit Small Arms Flows in Africa, pp. 42-59. Geneva: Small Arms Survey, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. 1 January
Relevant contents
While local actors who are involved in ant trafficking in firearms tend do so as a sideline to their main activity of smuggling legal commodities, in some cases, in order to maintain a low profile, criminal syndicates outsource the transport of weapons and drugs to local actors. In the Sahara–Sahel, conflict in Mali and Libya and the subsequent proliferation of armed groups in border areas led to the militarization and increased criminalization of traditional trading routes, which fell under the control of powerful armed actors. Participants in the present study noted that the general population, including migrants and refugees, are sometimes used as 'mules' to transport weapons. For instance, Uganda noted the involvement of women in such trafficking, while in the Central African Republic in 2014 a woman accompanied by her child attempted to smuggle shotgun ammunition from Cameroon in a bag of onions; the ammunition was intended for anti-Balaka militia. (p.42)
Diversions from national stockpiles remain a primary concern in other countries in the Sahel–Sahara and beyond. Boko Haram has carried out attacks in Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria that aimed specifically at capturing equipment from these countries' state forces. (p. 50)
For example, in February and April 2014 customs authorities in the Central African Republic, supported by the African-led International Support Mission to the Central African Republic, seized several boxes of Spanish-manufactured 12-gauge ammunition at the Cameroonian border that were apparently intended for anti-Balaka militia fighters. Investigations by the UN Panel of Experts revealed that the ammunition had been shipped from Spain as part of a lot of 528,000 cartridges to a registered firearm retailer in Yaoundé, Cameroon, on 9 January 2014. Although the retailer had signed an end-user undertaking for exclusive use in Cameroon, some of the cartridges were being seized in the Central African Republic only weeks later. (p. 54)