Weaponised markets

In 2018, the Small Arms Survey brought out a report on the prevalence of firearms among civilians in different countries. This report found that Yemen was the Arab country with the highest level of civilian gun ownership, with a total of 15 millions pieces of weapons. The Small Arms Survey says that in 2021, these and other weapons were responsible for the deaths of about 20,000 Yemenis.

This is in spite of UN Security Council Resolution 2117, which restricts the supply of small and light weapons and ammunition in conflict areas to protect civilians from misuse. UNSC Resolution 2216 also prohibits the supply of weapons to groups and individuals in Yemen, including the Houthis.

In this investigation, we show that small arms and light weapons are continuing to flow into Yemen. By touring actual markets in Sanaa and trawling through social media sites, we found dozens of American and European handguns, rifles, and ammunition - some newly manufactured - being sold openly in the city without restriction.

Some of these weapons and ammunition are even used by a security company which is contracted to provide security services to UN agencies, including training police officers of Facilities and Protecting Public Figures entity affiliated with the Interior Ministry of the Sanaa, (Houthis controlled) government.

Opening shot

Five Yemeni dealers at various times advertise weapons and ammunition for sale on the social networking sites Facebook and X (formerly Twitter).

Some of these weapons are made in the US and Europe, such as Austrian and American Glock pistols, M4A1 rifles, and American Beretta and Smith & Wesson handguns.

Facebook and X ban any posts that promote firearms or ammunition. X, however, has blocked this type of content on the accounts of only one of the five dealers.

Wolf-Christian Paes, a former member of the UN Security Panel of Experts, says that the source of Western weapons that came into Yemen after 2015 was the Saudi-led military coalition, which launched Operation Decisive Storm against the Houthis. “We know these weapons seeped into the black market, but there are no figures for the numbers smuggled in," he adds.

And it is not difficult to get hold of these weapons. We confirmed this by posing as prospective buyers of handguns and rifles; We contacted one of the dealers, who asked nothing about who we were or what we wanted the weapons for. He just sent us pictures of a whole range of new and used guns.

One of the weapons this dealer posted on Facebook in November 2023 was a Grand Power handgun. Based on the information on the back of the gun, a weapons expert - who did not want his name or the name of his organisation used - identified Slovakia as the country where it had been made in 2023, i.e. only a few months before it reached the dealer.

The UN Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA) database indicates that Slovakia, an EU member state, had not sent any shipments of small or light weapons to Yemen before.

Conventional weapons are small, light and heavy weapons. Handguns, machine guns and semi-automatic rifles are classified as small and light weapons.

The UNROCA database is the main source of information when it comes to researching the international arms trade. Over 90 percent of all arms transactions are recorded there.

Shops or weapons depots?

To verify if the images posted on social media were genuine, we decided to make a field trip to the Yemeni markets in Sanaa, where weapons are openly on sale.

While we were there, we took photos of dozens of American, Brazilian and European-made handguns. From this visit and from online searches we documented eight models of handguns on the market, made in the US, Brazil and Europe between 2017 and 2023.

We also noticed a prevalence of US-made fifth-generation Glock X19 handguns. These versions began to reach the market at the beginning of 2018, after the outbreak of war and after the UN resolution restricting supply of weapons to Yemen came into force.

Andrei Serbin Pont - Regional Representative of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict and Director of the Regional Coordinator of Economic and Social Research (CRIES) - analysed some of our photos of handguns. He said that the information that appeared on the Glock indicated that it was a genuine US-made pistol. He added that most of the sales made from Glock headquarters (in the US) went to countries that could not buy directly from the company's base in Austria.

Some of the advertised handguns also had instruction manuals and bags bearing the manufacturer’s name and were also well packaged, showing that they had never been used.

According to the UNROCA database, the US has never sent small or light weapons to Yemen, but only armoured vehicles that it exported in 2006.

This database suggests that Yemen has not legally imported any handguns since 2010, and that only around 7,500 Italian and Turkish-made handguns have been exported there since 1992. This raises the question of the source of these widely available guns, especially those newly made, after the passing of the UN resolution restricting arms supplies to Yemen.

Executive Director of Action on Armed Violence Dr Iain Overton says that countries neighbouring Yemen which have seen armed conflict have become a repository for old weapons. Following the Iraq war, the US military lost about half a million pieces of weapons, and with the ongoing conflict in Somalia, large quantities of weapons have been smuggled onto the black market in Yemen. There is also an organised smuggling system inside Yemen to bring in various types of weapons.

In Yemen, Law 40 was issued in 1992, to regulate the carrying and trafficking of firearms and ammunition. It allowed people to carry weapons as long as they had a license, renewable every three years.

Then, in July 2007, the Ministry of Interior cancelled the licensing of arms for individuals in the capital, Sanaa, and provincial capitals, as part of its efforts to limit the prevalence of weapons.

At that time, the Yemeni organisation Dar Al-Salaam (DASO), estimated that there were over nine million small arms in civilian hands in Yemen.

What came to be known as the “ban on carrying of weapons in provincial capitals” remained in force until the demonstrations began against the regime of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011, although there were doubts about how effective that ban was , especially regarding the ability of the state to stop arms trafficking.

Events in Yemen snowballed afterward, and, with the emergence of the protests in 2011, sporadic clashes broke out between Al-Qaeda elements in the country and the Yemeni army, and also between the army and the Houthis. These conflicts reached a peak in 2014 when the Houthis took over Sanaa. The conflict in Yemen then further expanded with the formation of the Saudi-led military coalition in 2015 and the launch of its operation against the Houthis.

In 2013, the UN had warned against the misuse of small arms and light weapons in conflict areas, through Resolution 2117.

Then, after the Houthis took power, the UN Security Council issued Resolution 2216, which included a ban on supplying weapons and ammunition to the Houthis and to the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Throughout this period, the UN had observed an increase in the smuggling into Yemen of light and small weapons. It estimated that there were tens of thousands of such weapons and millions of round of ammunition in the country.

After the protests emerged in 2011, the arms trade flourished and estimates of the number of weapons in civilian hands rose from nine million to 15 million in 2017.

Prices for new weapons range from two thousand US dollars to four thousand for a new US Glock X19 pistol. The fact that this is ten times the price for the same handgun on the official market shows how profitable this trade is, and also reflects the cost of illegally importing the gun into Yemen, which is added onto the final price tag for the end user.

Wolf-Christian Paes, the former member of the Panel of Experts on Yemen, says: “I’m frequently astonished at the increasing cost of weapons in Yemen, even though handguns are of limited military value. Even getting ammunition for them can be a costly business in Yemen.”

Paes adds that the arms embargo applies to the Houthis, but does not cover the regions ruled by this armed group. So if someone was looking to acquire a weapon, they can go to these areas under Houthi control.

As journalists we approached an arms dealer, whom we had observed selling US and European weapons in Sanaa. We asked how legitimate his business was and where he obtained the weapons and the license to sell them. He refused to answer, saying: “This is something that would cause me problems.”

UN funding for training of government forces

This dealer had appeared in a video on “X”, carrying an M4A1 rifle - made by a subsidiary of US company Colt - saying that he was visiting a shooting range, run by the company Peregrine Security and Safety Ltd, to try out the weapons and ammunition he had on sale in his store.

The Peregrine website states that the company has provided insurance services to high-level agencies like the World Health Organization. When we contacted Peregrine, they provided us with a list of the weapons they use. They include US -made Glock pistols, Russian Kalashnikovs, and US American M4A1 rifles, similar to the one that appeared in the arms dealer's video.

We also noticed the inclusion of German MP5 rifles on the company’s weapons list. Germany exported only 34 semi-automatic and assault rifles to Yemen between 2014 and 2016, and their use was limited to the UN mission.

Another surprising item appearing on the company’s arms list was 7.62x39mm IK ammunition, made by the Bosnian company Igman in 2019, despite the fact that UN Security Council Resolution 2216 also restricts the supply of ammunition to Yemen.

In response, Peregrine says it does not hold any licenses to import weapons from abroad, as this is beyond the scope of its work. The company says it has no modern weapons and uses only old generation ones, principally fourth-generation Glocks, Kalashnikovs, and US-made M4A1s.

Despite this, the UN Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA) indicates that Yemen has never officially imported any of this type of US-made weapon.

Regarding German-made MP5 rifles, Peregrine says that “a UN agency (which it did not name) asked us to provide this weapon for training purposes and for hiring. This meant we had to search the local market for models, most of which were Saudi made. It was a difficult job, because of the limited availability of these weapons and the fact that they are not greatly sought after. Once we knew we had not won the bid, we had to replace these rifles with more efficient Russian ones.”

The company did not deny it was reliant on the newly manufactured ammunition that we had seen. “When we are giving training programmes we really want to get hold of new, undamaged or locally manufactured ammunition. So we request new ammunition from the local market,” it said.

The company advised us to go down to the local market (the black market) to find out how this ammunition is bought and how it arrives in Yemen.

Once we found out that the company had newly manufactured ammunition, this prompted us to try and find when it had been established. We obtained the registration document, which showed that Peregrine had been set up in Sanaa in November 2018, i.e., about four years after the Houthis took power, a move not recognised internationally.

In February 2020, less than two years after the company was established, it won a contract – No. 004-2020 - worth $2,800 with the UN Development Program (UNDP) in Yemen to train government forces assigned to protecting UN facilities.

Contract between UNDP and Peregrine Security & Safety

About six months later, the UNDP signed another training contract – No. 0015-2020 – worth around $15,000 and lasting around four weeks. Peregrine showed part of this training on its Facebook page, featuring photos showing the use of weapons during the drills.

We also obtained a payment order dated July 2023, showing that the UNDP had paid approximately $4,300 to the company to conduct training for government forces.

In 2022, the UN Security Council renewed its resolution - paragraph 5 of Resolution 2624 (2022) – putting the Houthis on the list of organisations subject to restrictions on the supply of arms and ammunition. Among the grounds for this decision was that "the Houthis have engaged in actions that threaten the peace, security and stability of Yemen."

We furthermore obtained a document covering services provided by Peregrine’s training centre, in which the company indicated that it had conducted security and safety training for clients including UN agencies, facility protection forces, personal protection officers charged with protecting UN facilities, and civil society organisations.

The document stated that the centre used in its training programmes the various weapons and ammunition mentioned above as well as training items, such as armour and helmets.

The Facilities Security and Public Figures Protection Police Force comes under the Ministry of Interior in the Sanaa government, which is not recognized internationally. The interior minister in the government is Abdul Karim al-Houthi, brother of the father of the Houthi leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.

Data from the interior ministry in the Sanaa government indicate that the facilities protection police carried out 2,748 security missions and 437 field combat missions during 2022.

In the past, the administrative centre of the Facilities Security and Public Figures Protection Police Force was the target of an attack attributed by the Houthi interior ministry to “Saudi Arabia and the United States,” which led to "the destruction of the administration's infrastructure and facilities."

This force, although it received training by Peregrine, claims that it now runs facilities where 50 security training course have been held since 2023, focusing on guarding facilities and protecting individuals.

According to Peregrine documents, the company’s work permits were registered by Yahya Mohammed Ali Al-Sayani, Deputy Minister of Transport and Works in the Sanaa government. He is also head of the General Authority of Civil Aviation and worked as its deputy head during 2019.

Before Al-Sayani held any official position, he was a persistent critic of military operations against the Houthis and used his X (formerly Twitter) account to attack the UN.

Dr Iain Overton advised us to “ask the UNDP whether this company provided it with evidence that it had legal access to weapons before awarding it a training contract.”

On the question of the newly manufactured ammunition, Overton adds: “It’ll be important to confirm with the UNDP whether or not Peregrine got an official exemption from the arms embargo resolution.”

Former member of the Panel of Experts on Yemen Wolf-Christian Paes agrees. He goes on to say that any training given to Houthi-affiliated forces, including those assigned to protecting UN facilities, is subject to the UN arms embargo on the Houthis. So a request for an exemption must be submitted to and approved by the Sanctions Committee, set up under Resolution 2140, before the training takes place.

Peregrine did not respond to our query whether it had provided the UNDP with evidence that it had legally acquired the weapons, saying only that it had “provided all documents required in the tender process.” Although the training was undertaken using arms, as we observed, the company says that it provided only training materials, training staff, and transport, while government forces used their own weapons during the training.

The UNDP says that the UN entered into an agreement with the Ministry of the Interior of the de facto authorities (the Houthis) in 2017, to provide external security for its premises.

The UNDP also says that the purpose of the training was to ensure compliance with the minimum professional standards required by the UN Department of Safety and Security. On this basis the UNDP contracted with Peregrine to train government forces, which were assigned to protect their facilities, in dealing with suspicious packages, riot control, safety skills, and handling of weapons.

When we asked the UNDP if it had looked into where the company sourced its weapons and ammunition, it replied: “The way the company’s weapons are used was beyond the scope of the training mission, which was limited to providing guidance to government forces in delivering security services to the UNDP in accordance with international standards.” When we asked about Peregrine’s connections to a government official, and the fact that the company had only been established at the same time the UNDP took out a contract with it, the UNDP maintained that it had carried out its standard internal inspections and audits. These included consulting the UN Security Council Consolidated (Sanctions) List, the UN Ineligibility List, and the UNDP’s own internally excluded list.

Based on these reviews, the UNDP says: “It was not necessary to contact the UN Sanctions Committee over this training programme.”

Smuggling by land and sea

The Panel of Experts on Yemen, set up by the UN Security Council, reported that, between 2025 and 2022, border authorities seized a total of 7,894 weapons, both light and small arms, that were being smuggled to Yemen.

In June 2023, the Yemeni authorities seized a shipment of 40 boxes containing unspecified models of handguns bearing the Glock GmbH logo.

In August 2023, the anti-smuggling unit in Marib Governorate impounded 14 American and Italian handguns. At the same time, the Security Belt forces informed the Panel of Experts that they had seized 30 handguns in Aden.

Smugglers habitually use border crossings between the Sultanate of Oman and Yemen to bring in weapons. A report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime shows that, since the start of the war in Yemen, efforts to combat the spread of weapons have focused on the maritime route from Oman, because of the closure of airports in areas controlled by the Houthis.

The UN report also found that the land border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia “was bristling with weapons,” and Yemeni civilians could use only two crossing points on the border with Oman. And one of these is a freight port for commercial trucks, according to the UN report.

Despite the fact that internationally recognized security forces were deployed along the whole length of the roads from Houthi-controlled areas to the Oman border, enforcement operations in 2022 and 2023 revealed that weapons and other items were being smuggled across the border to Houthi forces.

Since 2015, the Arabian Sea, south of Yemen, has become a focus of arms smuggling. Between 2015 and 2023, 29,253 small and light weapons and about 2,380,000 rounds of ammunition were seized there.

Wolf-Christian Paes, the former member of the Panel of Experts on Yemen, says smugglers use dhows (small sail boats) to transport weapons from Iran – either directly to the Yemeni coast on the Gulf of Aden, or via Somalia after reloading the boats there.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime report, new weapons are smuggled in via this route. Once the weapons have passed through the Gulf of Aden, they are transported on to the provinces of Hadhramaut or Al-Mahra, and from there criminal networks smuggle them across the desert to the Houthi areas.

A report from the UN Panel of Experts in 2017 pointed to the port of Nishtun, in southeastern Yemen, as an unloading point for weapons. Nishtun is a government-controlled port, so its use in smuggling shows “a degree of corruption among officials,” according to the panel’s report.

This is consistent with a 2021 report from the Yemeni government’s Border Crossings Committee - of which we obtained a copy - entitled “A Report on the Results of the Work of the Committee to Evaluate and Rectify the Functioning of Land Crossings and Ports.” The report states that local authorities instruct customs departments at ports to release imports that should not be released or prevent the release of imports for no reason.

The report adds that inspections at a number of ports had shown that prohibited items were being brought in, using cars imported from the US.

Border Crossings Evaluation Committee report

The Border Crossings Evaluation Committee declared that “records are not kept of seized contraband, nor is the process of seizure completed with perpetrators being referred for prosecution. Some smuggled goods are even released on the instructions of the local authorities.”

This investigation was completed with support from ARIJ

This investigation was published in Arabic on the following:

Al-aalem Al-jadeed Mada News The Voice Nukhbe Post Yemen Future Khuyut Alyaoum 24 Yemen Now News Daraj Southern-Yemen

Yemen Arms Conflict Corruption Governance Security