Rwanda rejects report that 58000 civilians own guns

{The Rwanda National Police has rejected as false a report released by a US-backed, Australia-based institution, GunPolicy that has released a report claiming that 58,000 civilians in Rwanda own guns.}

The report ranks Rwanda at 151st among 178 countries with the largest number of civilian owned guns.

Rwanda police spokesperson, ACP Celestin Twahirwa has told IGIHE that such information is false.

“It is not true. No civilian own guns in this country,” he said. At the beginning of 2016, Rwanda National Police announced that it has been seven years since the law granting gun ownership to people that meet requirements was enacted but not a single individual has asked for it’.

The law was published in the government official gazette n° 52 of December 28 2009 in its 8th article explaining that a person in need of owning a gun has to request for it from the police Commissioner General.