Too Many Illegal Guns in the Streets!

The spread of illegal weapons across the country remains a critical issue for the Ministry of Home Affairs.  Belize’s porous land borders with Guatemala and Mexico are often used for the unfettered smuggling of guns and ammunition into the country.  The recent attack on the Roaring Creek Police Station was pulled off using a forty-caliber firearm.  The weapon of choice for the gunman who let loose on the ComPol’s house on Tuesday night was a forty-five-caliber handgun.  So what is the department doing to remove these dangerous weapons off the streets?

 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“We do know that a number of illegal and prohibited weapons are smuggled into the country via the porous western border area and certainly, yes, that has created to some degree the proliferation of these guns across Belize and particularly the Cayo District and Belize District.  So the police have conducted numerous operations and as I reported to you yesterday in my interview that from the operations that we have done in the San Ignacio/Santa Elena area over the past two weeks, we have removed five firearms and several ammunition off the street in the San Ignacio/Santa Elena area.  So it goes to show that the police have been very active in making sure that we remove these guns off the streets.  But again, you would know that the border area is very porous and as much as we are removing, some are coming in, and we just have to continue to work to see how we can intercept these persons with their weapons whenever they are moving around with them.”