By Bernama,
Sana’a : The number of weapons confiscated during the past ten months in Yemen reached approximately 140,000 pieces while 205 shops selling weapons were shut down in the last few days, Yemen News Agency (SABA) reported.
Well-informed sources said on Saturday that security services arrested, in the last few days, 148 persons involved in weapons trafficking throughout Yemen.
Yemen began last August a nationwide campaign to enforce a ban on carrying weapons in cities, seizing about 140,000 weapons at checkpoints outside the capital Sana’a and other main cities.
The ban, that includes on bodyguards of high-ranking officials, legislators and influential tribal chieftains, is aimed at reducing the visibility of arms that discourage tourism and investments in the country.
Police officials have said the campaign helped decrease the rate of domestic crimes by 40 percent during the last four months of 2007.
In 2005, the government embarked on a scheme to collect heavy weapons from tribal communities or arms traders, spending US$44m to buy back weapons. The effort, however, floundered as a result of inadequate funding.
Unofficial estimates put the number of firearms in circulation in Yemen at about 60 million.
A UN-sponsored small arms survey, released last August, concluded that Yemenis own between six and 17 million firearms.