Minimizing the impact of illicit small arms and diverted weapons transfers in the commission of atrocity crimes, human rights violations and other violence

31 January 2010. In Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city on the border with the United States, once infamous for being the most dangerous city on Earth and for its number of femicides, a group of assassins stormed a house in the neighbourhood of Villas Salvácar. There, young students were having a party. Sixteen were killed, and many more injured as a consequence of gunfire. This is but a token of a growing number of massacres taking place in a country flooded by small arms and light weapons resulting from illicit transfers that have fed a situation of armed violence related to organized crime, that has resulted in nearly 50,000 deaths from 2006 to date.

Related Subject(s): Disarmament