Angola

Over 54,000 firearms collected from citizens

Luanda, 5 March 2009 - The Angolan government collected from April last year to February this year about 54,875 firearms that were in illegal possession of civilian citizens.

This information was made public last Tuesday, in Luanda, by the spokesman of the National Commission for Disarmament, commissioner Paulo de Almeida.     
The top police official released those data to the press, when leaving from a meeting chaired by Premier António Paulo Kassoma, which was intended to analyse the activities that were carried out last January, as well as discuss matters relating to the functioning of the said commission.

Commissioner Paulo de Almeida revealed that most of the weapons were collected in the provinces of Huíla, Huambo, Luanda, Uíge, Malanje and Benguela. He also informed that the commission set the date of April 16 as National Disarmament Day, for on this date it will be one year since the Cabinet Council approved the government's action programme for disarmament of citizens illegally owning firearms.

The first broad meeting of the commission is scheduted for April 15-16 and is to be attended by deputy provincial governors.

According to the official, a seminar is also to be held for the experience sharing on computerisez data control.

The meeting was attended by the ministers of Defence, Kundy Paihama, Finance, Severin de Morais, Education, Burity da Silva, Welfare and Social Reintegration, João Baptista Kussumua, among other officials.