Littlejohn, Gary. 2015 ‘Operation Rachel: Reducing the Arms Caches.’ Secret Stockpiles: Arms Caches and Disarmament Efforts in Mozambique; Working Paper No. 21 (Table 5), pp. 25-26. Geneva: Small Arms Survey, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. 1 September

Relevant contents

Operation Rachel: reducing the arms caches

Within months of the October elections, the Government of Mozambique embarked on a series of operations in collaboration with the South African Firearms Investigation Unit of the South African Police Service (SAPS), in an effort to collect and destroy arms originating in Mozambique (Vines, 1998, p. 202). These missions were referred to collectively as Operation Rachel…(18)

Table 5: Arms and ammunition collected under Operation Rachel, 1995–2008

Year: Small arms collected - Ammunition collected

1995: 1,127 - 23,153
1996: 488 - 136,639
1997: 5,683 - 3,000,000
1998: 4,693 - 155,314
1999: 12,036 - 3,315,106
2000: 2,415 - 83,276
2001: 3,930 - 486,000
2002: 4,930 - 11,004,018
2003: 1,637 - 2,200,001
2004: 2,453 - 2,100,038
2005: 3,189 - 1,666,808
2006: 3,170 - 300,000
2008: 6,124 - 7,000,000
Total: 51,875 - 31,470,353

Sources: Hennop (2006, p. 25); unpublished data supplied by FOMICRES (2008)

Sources cited:

Hennop, Etienne. 2006. 'Small Arms and Light Weapons Destruction in Africa.' PaxAfrica: Quarterly Focus on African Peace and Security, Vol. 3, No. 1. February–May 2006. Pretoria: Safer Africa, pp. 24–26.

Vines, Alex. 1998. 'Disarmament in Mozambique.' Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 191–205.

18) For an account of the challenges inherent to arms collection and a description of cooperation between the two countries pertaining to Operation Rachel, carried out from March 1995 to August 1997, see Vines (1998, pp. 197–205).

[FOMICRES = Força Moçambicana para a Investigação de Crimes e Reinserção Social (Mozambican Force for Crime Investigation and Social Reintegration)]

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