NORTHERN PROVINCE

MUSANZE — Local authorities have been asked to sensitise residents keeping arms illegally to voluntarily hand them over.

At a consultative meeting to map the development of a National Action Plan-NAP on arms control and management in Rwanda, local leaders were also urged to educate residents to volunteer information leading to recovery of illicit small arms and light weapons in order to avert criminal activities and deaths resulting from their use.

The meeting which was organised by Rwanda National Focal Point on Small arms (RNFP) in partnership with the Regional Centre on Small Arms (RESCA), attracted provincial law enforcement agencies including Police, army, district Mayors, civil society organisations and prisons authorities.

Supt. Eric Kayiranga, the coordinator of RNFP, said that the consultations aim at harnessing views of all stake holders to create a national action plan of everybody’s role in the anti proliferation of illicit arms campaign-whose implementation would be regularly assessed for the next five years.

Kayiranga observed that the number of weapons in the hands of civilians is still big having been distributed before and during the genocide.

According to the 2004 Geneva Small Arms Survey, there are over 30m small arms and weapons circulating in sub-Sahara Africa 70 per cent  of which are believed to be in the hands of civilians, 19% in police and military hands and 2 per cent with militias.

Since the establishment of RNFP, 160 tonnes of ammunitions and unexploded ordnances have been destroyed in the last two years.

Rwanda is a signatory to the Nairobi Declaration and the Nairobi Protocol which aims at enhancing regional cooperation in the fight against small arms and light weapons.

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