The Yemeni government knows who are the traffickers and where to find them. Yet it has not enough courage to announce their names or to send them to trail.
The ex-prime minister confessed before the parliament he knows the names of traffickers but the cabinet cannot prevent them from practicing their activities.
A lot of weapons were supplied to markets during the time of wars such as 1994 war and the last war in Sadda’a.
Moreover there is a noticeable decrease in weapons prices which coexists in Sadda’a. It shows a direct correlation between the unsettled situation during war times and the low prices of weapons in markets.
Last week, the government unveiled a black list showing names of weapons traffickers and importers.
Since the parliament approved a law for (Organizing Weapons Carrying and Trade) in 1992, the government has failed to control the weapons dealers and even the parliament couldn’t make adjustment to the law. This makes it clear that the traffickers and weapons dealers have more influence on the weapons markets than the legislative authority.
Yemen has become one of the largest weapon market in the region and “It contains the largest market for small and uncontrolled weapons in the Middle East”, according to a report published by Grad Jewett Institute for International Studies. Because the government legislatively failed to control weapon trading, it started since the 1994 war to collect middle and large weapons that arrived to markets during the war time. It appointed 5 million US dollars for drawing weapons from markets in the four years after war.
The responsibility of weapons file was lately transferred to the high defense council presided by the President of Yemen who appointed 10 billion YR for drawing weapons from market and give a Six-months time for the mission to be accomplished starting from April 2007 according to a study paper prepared by Ali Awas.
As such, Yemen is a worrying cause for its neighboring countries especially with foreign statistics saying that about 60 million pieces of weapon exist in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia is more affected by the situation where the Saudi border guards frequently announce the seizing of large quantities of trafficked weapons coming from Yemen. And in an earlier American-Saudi investigation it was disclosed that weapons used for bombings in Saudi carries the Yemen defense ministry registration.
Accordingly, the international community put more pressure on the Yemeni government to seize weapon traffickers which it said enables terrorist groups to enlarge their activities because of the easy access of weapons.
The Yemeni government has received about 6 billion YR from donors for drawing weapons from the hands of people.
There are big weapon markets mostly in five governorates (Baitha, Shabwah, Mareb, Dhamar and Amran) and they sell all kind of weapons starting from small guns to heavy weapons, according to Awas’s study.

Importing weapons with faked official documents
Al-Mithaq newspaper disclosed last week that official authorities seized quantities of bullets belonging to Yemeni weapon traders which came from China.
The traders used faked official documents and will be sent to court after investigations.
According to Al-Mithaq, the Yemeni government has ordered all weapons-trade related companies and countries to deal only with the Ministry of Defense in such deals and through its embassies in these countries.
“The circulation of weapons is a complicated issue and cannot be easily eliminated”, said Ali Awas.