And in other news, 23 members of the Belize Police Department, the Belize Defense Force and Belize Coast Guard graduated today from weapons and ammunitions management training.
This training will help to strengthen the way weapons and ammunition are stored in the security forces, so as to prevent them from falling into the hands of criminal elements. At the ceremony today, DCP Bart Jones explained more.
Bart Jones, Deputy Commissioner of Police
"These persons that are trained this week will be able to, in the future, able to carry out inspection on the different stores that we have, that store ammunition, both the BDF, the police, the customs, and be able to make recommendations for certain adjustments based on what they've learned this week."
"Apart from the material that they covered, they were offered other resources that are available online that they could enhance their knowledge. And so it is for us to then improve on our facilities to prevent the issue of diversion of firearms from our armouries."
"This includes government -owned and as well, where we recover firearms from off the street from time to time, so that those don't re -enter into the hands of criminals. We are making sure that our stores are kept secure and so that from what we have that are in custody do not end up amongst the other illegal firearms that are there."
"But a part of this training is the communications part of it which seek to sensitize the public on the whole issue of firearm safety. And so we expect that when that roll out of the public awareness that you will see less persons, for example, discharging firearms in public, wantonly firing firearms at midnight on New Year's Day and that kind of thing."
"And we'll see less careless conduct illegal firearms ended up on the streets."
Callixtus Joseph
"You may tackle and control in many different ways. One way is tackle the illicit trafficking of firearms also, but you must also ensure that the legal trade is properly regulated."
"Now a key issue that may occur is that weapons and ammunition may be diverted from the legal trade to the illicit trade. One of the actions that we are taking in the Caribbean, not just Belize, but the entire Caribbean, is how to prevent the diversion of weapons."
"Another aspect of the training is to prevent unplanned explosion. Now, we may have munition or ammunition and all the chemicals thoughtout places. This could cause an unplanned explosion, which could result in billions of dollars for the economy and for the country."
Nikita Mohammed
"We're working here in particular in Belize following an assessment that was done in early 2023 to understand the state of armories and ammunition stores. The idea is that we were trying to reduce the risk of weapons and ammunition being diverted from legal authorities, from state authorities into criminal networks."
"So we're supporting here in Belize right now with weapons and ammunition management training specifically for the Belize Police, the Belize Defence Force, the Belize Customs and Exise, and the Belize Coast Guard."
"So this is what we just finished. Here we had a graduation ceremony. We had 23 persons from those different state entities that received that formal training. And we're very hopeful that they would use the tools and the knowledge that they've learned to actually implement in their work."
"Besides that, we're also working with the Belize State Authorities to destroy weapons and ammunition, as well as to provide some physical security upgrades to their armouries. So there's more secure."
