The United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC), within the framework of the United Nations Joint Programme entitled “Strengthening Human Security and Community Resilience by Fostering the Promotion of Peaceful Coexistence in Peru”, participated in the verification and monitoring process of more than 1,200 firearms. This process was carried out in collaboration with the National Superintendence for the Control of Security Services, Arms, Ammunition and Explosives for Civil Use (SUCAMEC) and concluded, on 6 July, with a public event at the police station in the centre of Trujillo, a northern Peruvian city suffering from elevated levels of armed violence.
This is the second firearms destruction carried out in Trujillo with the technical support of the United Nations, which coincided with the UN International Day of Firearms Destruction being celebrated later that week (9 July). Regional, local, and district authorities attended the ceremony to observe the symbolic cutting of the firearms confiscated by the Peruvian National Police rendering them inoperable until final destruction the next day at a steel company in Chimbote, Peru. The confiscated firearms included revolvers, pistols, shotguns, carbines, homemade weapons and rifles.
UNLIREC participated in the entire destruction process, from the planning stage, training, registration, monitoring, and verification of weapons to the final act of destruction.
Firearms destruction is one of the most effective means of improving citizen security, as it allows States to rid of surplus, obsolete, confiscated weapons or those surrendered by civilians, thus reducing the possibilities of their proliferation and misuse.