UNODC, through the Global Firearms Program, organized from 28 to 30 September 2021, a training on the “Detection and investigation of illicit firearms trafficking in land border crossings” in Bangui, aimed at law enforcement and criminal justice officers and officials. The training was organized jointly with the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) of the Central African Republic, and is part of the capacity building support UNODC provide to the institution.
This training was aimed at strengthening the technical and operational capacities of actors in the penal chain, as well as front-line officers in the Central African Republic to prevent and combat illicit firearms trafficking and to conduct effective judicial investigations. More than 25 participants took part in the activity including judges, police, gendarmes and customs officers.
The training was opened by the Chief of Staff of the Ministry of the Interior, Jean Claude Zoubanda, accompanied by the President of the National Commission on SALW, André Samba, and by the Head of the European Union Delegation in the country, Douglas Darius Carpenter. They all agreed on the importance of capacity building for security in the Central African Republic.
The training was facilitated by UNODC experts as well as national trainers, and enabled its participants to better understand topics such as the international, regional and national legal framework on firearms; criminal offenses relating to firearms; risk assessment and management; passenger and vehicle profiling and screening; inter alia. In particular, the training focused on learning by doing with an important component focused on practical exercises.
This training is part of a series of activities in support of the work of the National Commission on SALW and its efforts to implement the new Law on arms control in the country. This UNODC activity was made possible through the European Union funded project “Countering transnational illicit arms trafficking through the implementation of the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and its Firearms Protocol”.
