Tampering with guns results in hundreds of casualties across Yemen

Abdulkhaleq, 8-year-old child, was killed last Wednesday when he was tampering with Russian-made pistol in his district of al-Qaflah, Amran governorate. According to the police, the bullet lodged in his head and died on the spot.

 In another accident, an 8-year-old child killed his father during his tampering with a machine gun in his home in Sabwah governorate.

 According to the Ministry of Interior, the bullet launched from his fathers’ gun that the child was playing with, and settled directly in the father head, which led to his immediate death. Police considered the accident of fate caused by the neglect of family.

  Those victims are not the only victims of misplaying and messing about guns in Yemen.  The Interior Ministry said that the incidents of tampering with pistols and mistaken fire during the first half of the year 2012 resulted in the death of 102 people including 34 children, 7 females, and injuring 530 others among them 127 are children and 45 were women.

  Security statistics indicated that the first half of 2012 witnessed the occurrence of 555 incidents of tampering with weapons and 486 incidents were reported, as 180 of the perpetrators of these incidents were captured.  In 271 incidents, the victims were the perpetrators themselves, while in 81 incidents, the perpetrators were from the same family members, and 68 victims were killed by their colleagues and friends, according to the statistics issued by the Ministry of Interior Media Center.These incidents occurred in most of the 20 governorates of Yemen.

The secretariat of the capital came first with 133 incidents, followed by the province of Taiz with 62 incidents. Dhamar province ranked third with 57 incidents, and Sa’adah province came in fourth place with 48 incidents.

The rest of the incidents of tampering with weapons distributed as the following governorates: Hajjah with 31 incidents, Amran with 31 incidents, Ibb with 29 incidents, Mareb with 26 incidents, Hodeidah with 26, al-Dhale with 20 incidents, and Lahj with 19 incidents, Aden with 18 incidents.  13 incidents occurred in the provinces of Sana’a and al-Baidha, and 12 incidents were recorded in the province of Shabwah, and 9 incidents in al-Mahweet, and 3 accidents in Sayioun. 

Two incidents of tampering with arms occurred in each of Hadhramout, Abyan and al-Mahara provinces, while the provinces of Rayma and al-Jawf were cleared from this kind of accidents during the first half of the year 2012.  According to statistics, automatic rifle used in 367 incidents, and pistols in 151 incidents, and bombs and ballistics in 38 incidents. 

The report of the interior ministry attributed the reasons for the occurrence of such incidents to the spread of weapons in the community, and place them within the reach of children and abusers, as well as ignorance of the dangers of weapons and lack of knowledge of ways to use it and clean it. In a report issued Small Arms Survey Yemen was ranked the third highest country in the world for weapons possession, with 61 weapons per 100 civilians.

  There are about 60 million weapons in Yemen, based on the first field survey done by the European Union and Dar Al-Salam Organization. The survey was done in a number of Yemeni governorates, including Abyan, Lahajj and Al-Jawof. The numbers are based on the average of figures provided by the Small Arms Survey, in the Small Arms Survey 2007.     

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