Sana'a, Yemen - Yemeni police have confiscated more than 88,000 firearms since a nationwide campaign to enforce a ban on carrying weapons in cities began in last August, the interior ministry said on Monday. It said in a statement that more than 3,000 weapons have been seized in major cities across the Arab country, and over 85,000 pieces were confiscated at checkpoints outside the capital Sana'a and other cities since August 23, 2007.
The ban, that includes bodyguards of high-ranking officials, legislators and influential tribal chieftains, is aimed at reducing the visibility of arms that discourage tourism and investments in the country.
Police officials have said the campaign helped decrease the rate of domestic crimes by 40 per cent during the last four months of 2007.
Authorities have in recent years tried to crack down on people carrying arms, but their efforts have met with little success.
In 2005, the government embarked on a scheme to collect heavy weapons from tribal communities or arms traders, spending 44 million dollars to buy back weapons, according to officials. The effort, however, floundered as a result of inadequate funding.
Unofficial estimates put the number of firearms in circulation in Yemen at around 60 million. A UN-sponsored small arms survey, released last August, concluded that Yemenis own between six and 17 million firearms.
