How have civilian attitudes and perceptions towards firearms in Ukraine been impacted by the 2022 Russian full-scale invasion?

The Small Arms Survey has been monitoring what impact the ongoing war has had on Ukrainian citizens and their relationship with small arms and light weapons. With firearms increasingly prominent in today’s society, grasping public sentiment is essential for policymakers to craft evidence-based policies that truly reflect citizens’ real‑world circumstances and priorities.

Lebanon and Tunisia share a common struggle against extremism, but the social, political, religious, and ideological make-up of each country is quite different. The Small Arms Survey conducted a general population survey in the two countries between September and November 2023, in which 3,339 adults were interviewed about their views on key elements of their lives, violent extremism, and firearms.

This paper investigates how the war in Sudan is transforming Khartoum through acts of urbicide—the deliberate destruction of urban environments. It draws on satellite imagery, eyewitness testimony, and analysis of conflict dynamics to show how the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces have reshaped the capital’s geography. 

According to UNODC’s Global Study on Homicide 2023, Chile remains one of the safest countries in Latin America. Homicide rates have increased, however, as have gendered crimes that victimize women and girls.

South Sudan is once again on the brink of war. The regime of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir is bombing civilians and detaining the opposition, while foreign embassies close and evacuate staff. The Ugandan army has installed itself in Juba, the country’s capital, to assist Kiir’s regime’s suppression of the opposition. Both the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese army are also now participating in the conflict inside South Sudan. While Kiir has appointed a successor, Benjamin Bol Mel, he may not have the political capital to take over.

More than three years after the Taliban’s takeover and its seizure of the previous regime’s weapons stockpiles, the de facto authorities have taken steps to exert control over arms and ammunition in the hands of rank-and-file fighters, civilians, and private businesses. Yet despite the recent legal restrictions and their enforcement efforts, informal arms commerce and trafficking continue, and involves both older weapons as well as materiel likely sourced from the equipment that had been delivered to the former Afghan National Defence and Security Forces.

After almost two years of war, Sudan is in the grip of a humanitarian and political catastrophe. A conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continues to devastate the country. In recent months, the RSF has lost ground, and its efforts to create a government seem likely to come to naught. But what is the RSF, and what can learning about the paramilitary organization tell us about the future of Sudan?

'In 2023, one in five femicides in Argentina were committed with a firearm; the vast majority by current or former intimate partners, as well as other family members.

At the Fourth Review Conference of the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons in 2024, member states expressed concern that the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons impedes the achievement of gender equality. This has long been understood by women’s civil society organizations, as well as several states that have both experienced and documented the gender-differentiated impacts of small arms and light weapons and their broader impacts on human rights.

At the Fourth Review Conference of the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons in 2024, member states expressed concern that the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons impedes the achievement of gender equality. This has long been understood by women’s civil society organizations, as well as several states that have both experienced and documented the gender-differentiated impacts of small arms and light weapons and their broader impacts on human rights.