The Colombian government said Tuesday it was considering offering money to criminals who hand in their firearms in a bid to combat urban crime in a country racked by violence despite a 2016 peace deal.
The interior ministry said a “disarmament campaign” led by President Gustavo Petro and the mayors of major cities “envisages the possibility of payment offers for weapons.”
The announcement came after a security meeting Monday between senior government officials, the heads of the security forces and the mayors of Bogota, Medellin, Cali, Barranquilla and Cartagena.
The aim of the campaign, said Interior Minister Alfonso Prada, was “to fight street crime and organized crime in urban centers.”
Petro has pledged to bring “total peace” to a country plagued by violence committed by a variety of armed groups: guerrilla fighters, paramilitary groups, criminal gangs and drug traffickers.
Petro, Colombia’s first-ever leftist president, also seeks to reduce the number of gun permits issued to civilians.
According to the Small Arms Survey research group, there were 4.9 million civilian firearms in the country of 50 million people in 2017, about 4.2 million of them probably illegal.