3 February 2006 - A senior United Nations aid official has urged governments to stop selling arms to Africa.
Guns are at the heart of the problem of internal displacement in Africa, according to Dennis McNamara, at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) internal displacement department, at a press conference on 2 February. Click here to read the full story.
"There is one slogan I would like to suggest for 2006: No Arms Sales to Africa. Zero. Not an embargo, not a sanction, a voluntary cessation of all arms sales to Africa," Denis McNamara, UN special advisor for internal displacement.
There are 12.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Africa, comprising half the global total.
OCHA is a member of the UN Coordinating Action on Small Arms (CASA), alongside 15 other UN humanitarian, development and disarmament organisations. CASA is the coordinated UN response to gun proliferation and misuse. |
