About 632 civilians were killed and injured in gun accidents in Yemen in the first half of 2012, with those killed 102 people, the interior ministry reported on Monday.
Yemen has one of the world's highest rates of weapon spread, with statistics indicating there are more than 60 million guns in civilian hands.
Yemen has recently launched a anti-weapon campaign, focused on combating gun spread and carrying in main cities. The country in fact needs bigger efforts to disarm its tribal society with one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world.
The first half security statistic prepared by the ministry said 102 Yemeni civilians including 34 children and 7 women were killed in gun accidents. There were 530 others injured in such accidents including 127 children and 45 women, the ministry said.
The casualties were reported in 555 accidents including unintentional shootings and gun misuse, it said, pointing out that the authorities controlled 486 out of the total cases and arrested 180 suspects.
There were 271 self-inflicted accidents in which the victims killed or injured themselves, 81 household accidents and 68 accidents in which victims were killed and injured by friends and colleagues, it added.
The accidents were reported in 20 out of 22 provinces in the republic. The provinces which did not report any accidents were Rima and Jawf . The capital Sanaa was ranked first with 133 accidents, Taiz second with 62 accidents, Dhamar third with 57 accidents and Saada fourth with 48.
The weapons used in the accidents included machine guns, firearms and grenades, it said.