101 people killed and wounded over last month

By Fatik al-Rodaini

SANA'A, April 5, 2012- At least 101 people, including children and women, were accidentally killed and wounded throughout playing with guns across Yemen in March.

Yemen's Interior Ministry said in a report posted on its website that 101 people, including 27 children and 6 women, were killed and wounded throughout playing with guns.

The report mentioned that at least 21 people were killed among them 10 children while 80 others were wounded in similar accidents among them 17 children and 6 women.

According to the ministry most of the incidents happened in 16 provinces across the country with 18 incidents in the capital Sana'a, 14 in Dhamar, 10 in Sa'ada, 7 in Ameran, 6 in Taiz, 5 in Aden and Ibb, 4 in Lahj and Sahbowa provinces, while the other incidents happened in the rest of Yemen's provinces.

Recent studies proved that weapons proliferation had drastically increased over the past year in direct connection with the revolution and the need civilians felt to protect their families.

Despite many positive steps which were taken by the Yemeni government in 2007 to curtail weapon-carrying in urban areas, the past two years pretty much rendered all efforts fruitless.

Social violence in the impoverished Republic is now exacerbated by the widespread ownership of weapons.

Although some statistics claim that there are an estimated 60 million weapons in Yemen a more recent and more accurate report cited a figure closer to 11 million in a country of 23 million, which in any case make the weapon per inhabitant ratio still one of the highest in the world.

2,000 Yemenis die every year in ethnic conflicts, according to government figures and gun-related crime is on the increase.

Many Yemeni children who accidentally killed their loved ones while playing with guns

On the other hand, Yemen's Interior Ministry has said that approximately 235 people committed suicide, including 24 children in a decline of 19.6 percent when comparing with 2010 when 292 committed suicide.

According to the ministry, 36 people were committed suicide in the capital Sana'a, 22 people in Taizi, 22 in Ibb and the rest of the figure was in other governorates.

Analysts say that most people commit suicide as a result of the poverty and unemployment in Yemen that faces sever hunger.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP) , five million Yemenis are moderately food insecure and at risk of experiencing further food shortages.

The protests that hit Yemeni in 2011 demanding the ouster of the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh sharply pushed up prices. The cost of most essential commodities has risen by 50 percent.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said last year that Statistics indicate that one in three people are food insecure and under-nourished, and more than 50 percent of children are stunted.

A Yemeni economist, Mohammad Al-Afandi, had revealed that poverty in Yemen has raised to 70 percent and unemployment to 40 percent, pointing out the GDP growth rate declined to approximately zero and the reserves of foreign currency fell to $ 4.5 billion.

Yemen remains the poorest country in the Arab world, with a per-capita income of $1,300; almost half of the population lives on less than $2 a day.Yemeni economists expect that the donor conference on Yemen to be held in March in Riyadh, would enable the government overcome economic challenges.