4000 Yemenis killed over two years

Yemen’s interior ministry HAS said that widespread access to weapons across the country led to the killing of more than 4000 people, including children and women, and the wounding of an estimated 27,441 civilians in 2010 and 2011. The interior ministry’s website reported that an urgent priority of the ministry was to prevent the carrying of weapons inside Yemen’s provinces, limited the possibility of “accidents.” “Preventing the circulation of weapons inside Yemen’s provinces is a national issue demanding unifying efforts,” the statement read. The ministry called on citizens in the country to stop carrying weapons because it was preventing the country from moving forward, perpetuating a state of insecurity which was hindering the economic recovery and investors’ confidence. “Widespread weapons in the country as we have seen threaten security and stability in the society, and it would help in increasing the crimes within the country such as killing, kidnapping, looting, blocking roads, armed robbery, stealing and revenge,” it read. “Holding and owning weapons have a negative impact on development, investment, and tourism,” the statement stressed. Recent studies proved that weapons proliferation had drastically increased over the past year in direct connection with the revolution and the need civilians felt to protect their families. Despite many positive steps which were taken by the Yemeni government in 2007 to curtail weapon-carrying in urban areas, the past two years pretty much rendered all efforts fruitless. Social violence in the impoverished Gulf country is now exacerbated by the widespread ownership of weapons. Although some statistics claim that there are an estimated 60 million weapons in Yemen a more recent and more accurate report cited a figure closer to 11 million in a country of 23 million, which in any case make the weapon per inhabitant ratio still one of the highest in the world. 2,000 Yemenis die every year in ethnic conflicts, according to government figures and gun-related crime is on the increase.