Firearm News
Great Lakes Leaders Agree to Seize Guns from Nomadic Pastoralists
15 December 2006
Daily Nation (Nairobi)
NAIROBI — A new regional security agreement unveiled yesterday proposes the disarmament of nomadic pastoralists in Kenya, Uganda and Sudan.
The programme, targeting the entire Great Lakes Region, proposes a joint security management of common borders to oversee activities in 12 border zones identified by member States.
The programme was unveiled at the ongoing second summit of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region at Gigiri, Nairobi.
It says each... (GunPolicy.org)
Kenyan Police Seize AK-47s, Handguns from Sudanese VP's Nairobi Home
16 September 2006
East African Standard (Nairobi)
NAIROBI — Police yesterday raided the Nairobi home of Sudanese deputy Vice-President, Dr Riek Machar, and confiscated seven guns and bullets.
The officers also arrested Machar's son and a cousin.
The officers found five AK-47 riffles, two pistols and 170 bullets in the four bed-roomed house in Kileleshwa.
Also seized were communication gadgets, which police said were illegal.
The raid was prompted by an incident on Thursday outside the residence.
A grandson of... (GunPolicy.org)
Fierce Resistance to Gun Seizure, Fragile Disarmament in Southern Sudan
3 August 2006
Sudan Tribune / IRIN (UN News)
MALAKAL — Every year, during the dry season, armed youth — the so-called White Army — from communities in Ayod (Gawaar Nuer) Uror, Nyirol (Lou Nuer) and Duk (Dinka) counties take their cattle to the water-rich west of Jonglei State in southern Sudan. Local sources estimate that between 6,000 and 9,000 armed Lou Nuer youth travel through Dinka and Gawaar Nuer lands each year.
Such seasonal migrations were peaceful 30 years ago but became increasingly violent... (GunPolicy.org)
Chinese Arms in Darfur: The Gun Runners' Twisted Trail to Africa
19 June 2006
Reuters
KHARTOUM — In a rebel camp along the barren, windswept border between Sudan and Chad, dozens of trucks packed with dreadlocked fighters manning heavy machine guns are lined up.
Piled up behind them are ammunition boxes, covered in Chinese symbols — it's impossible to know exactly where the bullets in the boxes came from but they offer a glimpse of the complex and circuitous routes of the global arms trade.
United Nations investigators have found most of the small... (GunPolicy.org)
Young Middle East Arabs Want Stricter Gun Control, Study Finds
1 March 2006
Reuters / IRIN
BEIRUT — Young Lebanese, Palestinians and Sudanese want tougher gun control regulations, a survey by a group of NGOs revealed.
The findings of the study, which was conducted over the last six months by the Middle East North Africa Network on Small Arms (MENSAA), an umbrella group of Arab NGOs concerned with the misuse and proliferation of illicit small arms and light weapons, were released on Tuesday in Beirut.
"Each of the studies confirmed that a majority of... (GunPolicy.org)
Guns Flow in to Sudan's Darfur Despite Embargo: United Nations
10 January 2006
Reuters
Weapons are flowing to anti-government rebels in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region from neighboring Chad, Eritrea and Libya in violation of a U.N. arms embargo, U.N. experts said in a report obtained by Reuters on Tuesday.
The embargo, imposed on all non-government forces in Darfur in July 2004, has also failed to prevent the government from arming the Arab militias that act as its proxy fighters in the Darfur conflict, the experts said.
Since a second civil war ended... (GunPolicy.org)
NGOs Urge Action Against Illicit Arms in South
28 November 2005
BBC Worldwide Monitoring / Sudan Radio Service, Transcript
[Presenter] Civil society organizations in Southern Sudan are calling on the government to control the proliferation of illegal fire arms.
The group said there is need to raise a lot of awareness among Sudanese because small arms cause insecurity in the region.
During a workshop on small arms in Nairobi, Kenya, last week, participants urged the government to empower people economically so that they do not resort to holding illegal arms as a means of earning a living.... (GunPolicy.org)
Russian, Chinese Guns Fuel Sudan War: Amnesty Int'l
17 November 2004
Independent (UK)
The brutal ethnic war in Darfur is being fuelled by weapons supplied by companies from countries that are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, a report claimed yesterday. The Security Council is trying to find a way to end the violence.
The Chinese and Russian governments have been allowing the sale of military equipment to the Sudanese government, according to an Amnesty International report, which also repeated claims that a British firm had been... (GunPolicy.org)
In Darfur, Guns Offer Do-it-yourself Security
16 November 2004
Christian Science Monitor
AL-FASHER, Sudan — As the dawn's rays spread across this sand-strewn northern capital of Sudan's troubled Darfur region this weekend, the crack of gunfire rang out. But the shots weren't hostile.
They were to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the festival following the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Thirty days of fasting between sunrise and sunset is almost uniformly observed here; even water is not consumed during daylight hours, despite the searing rays of the desert sun. So... (GunPolicy.org)
Aid Was Flown to Sudan on Gunrunning Planes
25 August 2004
Evening Standard (London)
The British Government has been sending aid to Sudan and elsewhere in Africa on airlines accused by the UN of gunrunning.
Yesterday, the Department for International Development (DfID) suspended all future contracts with Buraq Air, its main operator of relief flights to Sudan, and launched an inquiry after the Evening Standard told it about the firm's record.
The DfID used Libya-based Buraq as recently as two weeks ago and another cargo airline, Aerocom, in... (GunPolicy.org)
Britain Brokered Gun Parts to Militias
24 August 2004
Evening Standard (London)
Britain has sent more than 180 tons of arms to war-torn Sudan in the last three years, according to the United Nations.
The revelation, which will embarrass Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as he visits Darfur today, is contained in the official UN commodity trade database, Comtrade, which compiles information supplied by national customs services.
During his visit to the Abu Shouk refugee camp, Mr Straw is expected to condemn what he described as the "atrocities"... (GunPolicy.org)
More Guns Could Have Saved Sudan, Says Kopel
18 August 2004
National Review (USA), Opinion
[T]he sovereign territorial state claims, as an integral part of its sovereignty, the right to commit genocide, or engage in genocidal massacres, against peoples under its rule, and … the United Nations, for all practical purposes, defends this right. To be sure, no state explicitly claims the right to commit genocide — this would not be morally acceptable even in international circles — but the right is exercised under other more acceptable rubrics … — Leo... (GunPolicy.org)
United Nations,Afghanistan,Iraq,Sudan,Africa,West Asia
Stop the Guns Targeting Aid Workers
11 August 2004
Globe & Mail (Toronto), Opinion
The terrifying decline of humanitarian and security conditions in Iraq and Sudan is grabbing headlines.
But for the humanitarian aid community, news from Afghanistan is worse. In July, five employees of Médecins sans frontières were ambushed and killed in the northwestern province of Badghis. These killings echoed the shooting deaths of five other Afghan aid workers near Kabul earlier this year on the eve of a visit by the U.S. Defence Secretary. On Aug. 3, two... (GunPolicy.org)
United Nations Places Arms Embargo
31 July 2004
Globe & Mail (Toronto)
JOHANNESBURG — There are 1.5 million desperate refugees in the Darfur region of western Sudan. At least 40,000 people have died of hunger, or in attacks by government forces and government-organized janjaweed militias.
But yesterday, at the United Nations Security Council, the best world powers could do was pass a watered-down, U.S.-sponsored resolution threatening the Sudanese government with unspecified "measures" if it fails to act against the janjaweed in 30... (GunPolicy.org)
22 January 2004
New York Times
TAM, Sudan — Hope is gaining ground on the front lines of Africa's most expansive — and exhaustive — battlefield, where Sudanese have killed and maimed other Sudanese in an area the size of Europe for 20 long years.
The new reality could be seen in this village west of the Nile the other day when a brigade of rebel soldiers arrived in formation, singing songs of liberation and clutching aging AK-47's.
At their commander's order, about 100 of the youngest... (GunPolicy.org)
Karamojong Fighters Hand Over 3,000 Guns
4 December 2001
Daily Monitor (Kampala)
More than 3,000 illegal guns were Sunday voluntarily handed over to government by the Karimojong community at the launch of the long awaited disarmament exercise of the region.
The exercise was launched by President Yoweri Museveni at Moroto Boma ground, a statement from State House Sunday, said. It is being carried out simultaneously throughout the three districts of Moroto, Kotido and Nakapiripirit.
The statement said 1,200 illegal guns were voluntarily handed over... (GunPolicy.org)