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UNITED NATIONS, December
20, 2008 — The 16-year UN arms embargo against Somalia is constantly
being violated with weapons mainly coming from Yemen and financed from
Eritrea, a United Nations report said Friday.
"Most serviceable weapons and almost all ammunition currently available
in the country have been delivered since 1992, in violation of the
embargo," the report from a UN monitoring group said.
This illegal trafficking is fueling the bloody armed conflict in the
Horn of Africa country and aiding rampant piracy off the Somali coast,
the report added.
Earlier Friday, the UN Security Council prolonged the monitoring group's
mandate for another year and reiterated "its intention to consider
specific action to improve implementation of and compliance with" the
embargo.
Independent experts have been mandated "to continue to investigate, in
coordination with relevant international agencies, all activities,
including in the financial, maritime and other sectors, which generate
revenues used to commit arms embargo violations."
Somalia has been wracked by a civil since 1991 and its transitional
government is only in control of a small part of the country.
The UN Security Council slapped an arms embargo on the territory in 1992
under resolution 733.
Source: AFP
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