NOVANEWS
Eastern European countries have approved around $1.1 billion of weapons in the past four years to Middle Eastern countries. | Photo: Reuters.
Questions have been raised about whether the arms sales violate international law.
A new weapons trade route originating in the Balkans has funneled around US$1.1 billion worth of weapons to Middle Eastern countries over the last four years, according to a new investigative report carried out by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
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The authors of the new report believe that the majority of these weapons, which include AK-47s, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons and heavy machine guns, have been purchased in Syria and have intensified fighting in the country’s brutal the five-year civil war.
“Proliferation of arms to the region has caused untold human suffering; huge numbers of people have been displaced and parties to the conflict have committed serious human rights violations including abductions, executions, enforced disappearances, torture and rape,” Patrick Wilcken, an arms control researcher at Amnesty International, told BIRN.
As part of the year-long investigation, researches analyzed arms export data, U.N. reports, plane records, and weapons contracts, which reveal an alarming increase of weapons sales stemming from Eastern European countries such as Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Slovakia, Serbia and Romania.
The report cites Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey as being the primary recipients of the weapons. In the report, these countries are also identified as being the “key arms suppliers to Syria and Yemen.”
The increase in weapons flow from Eastern Europe to the Middle East marks a new trend, as many Eastern European countries in recent years have obtained arms export licenses, which were granted despite warnings from experts and members of the international community.
For example, the new research includes confidential internal documents obtained by BIRN and OCCRP, which revealed private concerns by officials from Serbia’s Ministry of Defense that weapons sales to Saudi Arabia would be diverted to Syria.
The list of weapons sold to Middle East client states include military grade weapons such as assault rifles such as AK-47s, mortar shells, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons.
“The evidence points towards systematic diversion of weapons to armed groups accused of committing serious human rights violations,” Wilcken said in response to the report. “If this is the case, the transfers are illegal under … international law and should cease immediately.”
