7,000 weapons recovered from rebel group

chika ebuzor

March 31, 2017 9:53 PM

Jean Arnault, the Head of the UN Mission, said the search for other caches of weapons hidden by FARC-EP had continued.

The UN Mission in Colombia is set to register some 7,000 weapons this weekend, recovered from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP).

Arnault said: “As for registration, we are at 85 percent of the weapons in the camps.

“This weekend we will reach a figure of approximately 7,000 registered weapons. On these weapons there are concerns: many are new and are short and long weapons, high calibre.

“It is a record that covers the range of FARC-EP weapons”.

He said the weapons hand over had been in place since the beginning of the month and the UN hoped to possess 60 per cent of all FARC-EP arms by April 1.

Arnault, however, said accessing hidden and hard to reach caches could delay the process.

He said a further 1,000 weapons were set to be received from FARC-EP members participating in peace promotion or, pedagogia de paz, bringing the number of arms collected by the UN to 8,000.

The UN official said that commitments made at the Cartagena meeting of the ‘Follow up, Promotion and Implementation Commission’ to make progress on preparation of registration zones and camps, security and legal guarantees and provision of health services, would further accelerate the laydown of arms process.

In November 2016, the Colombian Government and FARC-EP, the largest rebel group in the South American nation, signed a peace deal, ending a 50-year conflict.

chika ebuzor