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Carlson, Khristopher. 2022 ‘Kenya.’ Firearms and Ammunition Trafficking in Eastern Africa; 1, pp. 12-13. Vienna: United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 1 June

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Illicit firearms are trafficked into Kenya from multiple sources, including all of its bordering Member States – Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda – and by sea routes.

(…) However, the dynamics of the firearms trade are taking on a new dimension. A spike of migrants moved into Turkana from areas resulted in an uptick in firearms coming across the border, reportedly sold to facilitate migrants' movement further south to Nairobi, Kampala, and other southward destinations. Lokichogio, a large commercial town near the South Sudan and Ethiopian borders, is reported to be a trafficking hotspot, where firearms sales and-resales on the local black market are facilitated.

The buyers of migrants' firearms appear to be mostly local pastoralists, who are trading cattle for cash to buy them. Non-local traders are also involved and are alleged to be smuggling their purchases to black markets in Nairobi and other destinations in Kenya. (…)

The types of arms trafficked from Somalia include common G3 and AK-pattern rifles, popular among pastoralists, and pistols, popular among urban criminals for their concealability. Facilitating this trafficking are both Somali and Kenyan traffickers, some of whom do so by commercial trucks or smaller vehicles, and as often happens, by foot. In 2018, AK-56 rifles, recovered from al-Shabaab operatives inside Kenya, were traced to supplies belonging to the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS), marking the first time that FGS firearms intended for use in a terrorist attack were seized outside of Somalia.

On Kenya's southern border, there is an established trafficking route from DRC to Kenya via Tanzania, with involvement from criminal networks from Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia; illicit firearms are also flowing out of Kenya into Tanzania.

ID: Q16102

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