Thousands die each day from armed violence
Oxfam and NGOs call for arms treaty to put an end to thousands of deaths from armed violence
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By Adam Leveridge. |  |
Wednesday, 07, Oct 2009 06:30
By Sarah Garrod.
An urgent call to launch negotiations on an arms trade treaty has been made as over 2,000 people die every day from armed violence.
Oxfam and a coalition of NGOs have said today the death toll has reached 2.1 million in the "three years of talks about talks" which are "going at a snail's pace".
In a report published today, "Dying for Action", Oxfam and 11 other NGOs who support the international Control Arms campaign, show millions of people have died either directly or indirectly as a result of armed violence since governments agreed in 2006 on the need to regulate the arms trade.
They say this is the equivalent of more than 2,000 people per day - worse than one person killed each minute.
Governments are meeting this month at the United Nations in New York in a debate to decide whether to officially kick start formal negotiations on creating an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Oxfam said that a treaty must be concluded before the end of 2012 at the latest.
"Eight out of every ten governments want to get an Arms Trade Treaty agreed and ordinary citizens are calling for one too. This month we need the majority of enlightened countries at the UN to make it happen. An intransigent few cannot be allowed to keep their foot on the brakes forever," said Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International.
"Even though there has been a marked decline in wars since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the number of violent attacks against civilians has continued at intolerable levels," Jan Egeland, the former UN under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, wrote in the report.
"Only a forceful, unambiguous and verifiable convention can control transfers and do away with the networks of illegal arms brokers that supply our generation's weapons of mass killings and mass misery."