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MAG is supporting the country’s civilian disarmament campaign and working with Burundian authorities to limit the risks of leakage of state-owned weapons falling into civilian or rebel hands. |
The problem
Burundi’s 10-year civil war has left the country in a state of underdevelopment and insecurity. A legacy of the conflict is the widespread prevalence of small arms and light weapons (SALW) such as hand-grenades, which continues to jeopardise the security of much of the civilian population and hamper development.
They are commonly used in civil disputes and can be accessed by children who play with them unaware of the risks. There is not a week without at least one report of victims by hand grenades.
Nearly 100,000 households in Burundi are thought to possess SALW and some households may possess more than one weapon.1
How MAG is helping
MAG is working closely with the Burundian authorities and directly with the Burundian Police to develop a capacity to safely secure and manage their SALW stocks, and has plans to develop a similar comprehensive project with the Burundian Army.
The goal is to ensure that SALW from Government stores will not feed in to the civilian market and prevent accidents.
MAG is also supporting the country’s civilian disarmament campaign by collecting and destroying SALW that have been surrendered by the population to the National Commission for Civilian Disarmament.
See these pages for detailed information on MAG's latest work in Burundi:
Your donation to MAG helps us to move into current and former conflict zones to clear the remnants of conflict, enabling recovery and assisting the development of affected populations.
Beneficiaries
MAG’s contribution reduces the risks of accidents and – by improving the security and the management of SALW – limits the risks of leakage of state-owned weapons into civilian or rebel hands, thereby contributing to a decrease in the burden of armed violence on the Burundian society, and the level of violence in the crucial period of the upcoming elections.
Find out more
- MAG Burundi in depth
- RECSA (Regional Centre on Small Arms) [external link]
1 Small Arms in Burundi, Disarming the Civilian Population in Peacetime, A Study by the Small Arms Survey and the Ligue Iteka with support from the UNDP-Burundi and Oxfam-NOVIB, Stéphanie Pézard and Nicolas Florquin, August 2007. This estimate takes into account all small arms and light weapons, and also grenades.
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MAG would like to express its thanks to the following donors to its Burundi operations: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Swiss Government; UNDP.
November 2009
www.maginternational.org/burundi
