Many guns imported by the Somali government with UN approval are being resold by arms dealers on the black market in the nation’s capital Mogadishu, two Western diplomats said.
Such sales violate a three-year-old deal which exempted government weapons imports from a U.N. arms embargo. The U.N. Security Council partially lifted it in 2013 to equip government forces fighting al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants.
The United Nations imposed a blanket arms embargo on Somalia shortly after the nation plunged into civil war 25 years ago.
The two diplomats, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, said through photographic evidence it was calculated between 35 to 40 percent of automatic rifles and other small arms on sale on the Mogadishu black market were imported by the government under the exemption.
U.N. reports identified some cases of government weapons and ammunition being sold on the market. But these findings, revealed by diplomats and analysts to Reuters, are the most comprehensive examination of the problem and show its scale.
A Somali government official acknowledged there was some leakage of weapons, although he said this involved small amounts in one-off cases rather than a systematic problem.