Authorities in Liberia, Tanzania and Togo worked with United Nations officials throughout September 2022 to take illicit small arms and light weapons out of circulation.
The event supported the African Union’s “Silencing the Guns” initiative, which is part of the AU’s Agenda 2063. Signed in 2013, the agenda represents a 50-year Pan-African vision of an “integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens, representing a dynamic force in the international arena,” according to the AU.
More than 40 million weapons are circulating in Africa, many unlicensed, causing more than 500,000 deaths each year.
On the first day of September, Togolese authorities destroyed more than 2,000 illicit weapons of various calibers that had been seized in the country.
“Taking one illegal arm out of circulation means saving lives,” said Anselme Yabouri, director of the U.N. Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament
in Africa.
The weapons amnesty program offers an opportunity for measurable — if modest — impact. During the month, civilians were allowed to safely and anonymously surrender illegal weapons without fear of prosecution.
In 2021, the U.N. Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) supported participation from Madagascar, Niger and Uganda. The effort stretched into April 2022, when 1,497 weapons were destroyed in a public event, according to Africa Renewal, a U.N. publication.
Ivor Richard Fung, deputy chief of UNODA, Conventional Arms Branch, told Africa Renewal in 2020 that civilians hold 85% of small arms and light weapons worldwide.