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The ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) Im­ple­men­ta­tion Agency for Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty (IM­PACS), Lt. Col. Michael Jones, says the dev­as­tat­ing im­pact of il­le­gal guns in the Caribbean can­not be over­stat­ed.

“These in­stru­ments of vi­o­lence fu­el gang war­fare, dri­ve up homi­cide rates and un­der­mine the peace and sta­bil­i­ty es­sen­tial for our sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment,” he told a five-day firearms train­ing work­shop that ends on Fri­day.

This week’s train­ing work­shop is a di­rect out­come of the col­lab­o­ra­tive spir­it fos­tered by CARI­COM IM­PACS, the Eu­ro­pean Union’s (EU) Eu­rope-Latin Amer­i­ca Pro­gramme of As­sis­tance against Transna­tion­al Or­gan­ised Crime (El PAC­C­TO 2.0), and France’s Tech­ni­cal Co­op­er­a­tion Sup­port Pro­grame for the Fight against Or­ga­nized Crime in the Caribbean Re­gion (AL­COR­CA).