![]() ![]() ![]() “We do recognise the importance of small arms imports, especially in a region like Africa, where major arms are not so widely available. “Competitive acquisition plays some role in, but concerns over domestic insurgencies are becoming increasingly important in shaping what the military buys,” said Malcolm Chalmers, director of UK defence policy at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies.īut Sipri is not able to include imports of small arms – widely used in civil wars such as those in South Sudan, Central African Republic and Somalia – in its data. The involvement of Uganda, Ghana and Kenya in military operations mandated by the African Union and the UN also contributed to a rise in arms imports. Cameroon and Nigeria showed “urgent demand” for weapons in their fight against Islamist rebel group Boko Haram, Sipri said. Many countries used soaring oil revenues to buy weapons, but a sharp drop in the price of oil has cast doubts on their ability to continue heightened defence spending.ĭriving arms purchases in the continent is Algeria’s long-standing rivalry with Morocco and Uganda’s involvement in South Sudan’s civil war, according to Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher at Sipri. The leading African importers of military hardware were Algeria, Morocco and Sudan. ![]()
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