The war in the former Yugoslavia resulted in a number of lethal firearms in SerbiaRomanian Interior Minister Lucian Bode claims that the risk that ended up in the hands of the people is very high, the same risk exists for the current conflict in Ukraine. He also revealed how many Romanians now have lethal firearms.

Interior Minister Lucian Bode said there are approximately 70,000 owners of lethal firearms in Romania, and most of them have hunting weapons that are periodically checked by the police. Bode once again emphasized that Romania is a safe country.

When asked by Digi 24 on Friday evening whether incidents like the one in Serbia could happen in Romania, Lucian Bode explained that Serbia is the first country in Europe in terms of the number of guns per thousand inhabitants, according to News.ro.

“There are almost 73,000 owners of lethal firearms in Romania”

“Indeed, our neighbors have had a dark week with these two tragedies. We need to look a little at the reasons. We can see that Serbia is the first country in Europe in terms of the number of guns per 1000 inhabitants and the third in the world. This could be the reason. Speaking of reporting, let’s see what is happening in our country. Of course, in Romania there are approximately 70,000, almost 73,000 owners of lethal firearms, legal owners. To them are added those who, due to the prism of their duties, the structures of the country’s defense system, public order and national security, legally possess weapons. We cannot say that Romania has a very, very large number of weapons. Most of the 70,000 firearms are hunting. They are periodically checked by the police according to a schedule clearly established by law. All owners of firearms are checked, the method of possession of these weapons is checked,” Bode said.

The Minister of Internal Affairs believes that the large number of firearms in the population of Serbia is also related to the war in the former Yugoslavia, and he also makes a prediction about Ukraine, which is currently at war with Russia.

Parallel between the war in the former Yugoslavia and the current conflict in Ukraine: “There are prerequisites for tragedies”

“So we can’t draw parallels with what’s happening in Serbia now, and God forbid I’m wrong, but if we look at what happened during the war in the former Yugoslavia and how many weapons are left in the population, if we will see, I hope to end this absurd war in Ukraine as soon as possible, but we think that hundreds of thousands of weapons have been distributed to the population without any inventory. In a few years, we will have or there are prerequisites for tragedies in Ukraine, as, unfortunately, happened in Serbia,” Bode said.

The Minister of Internal Affairs emphasized that Romania is a safe country.

“The large number of weapons on the country’s population is really the cause of these tragedies. I don’t think there is a problem in Romania to talk about similar situations, because I repeat once again, Romania is a safe country and this, I do not say subjectively, the Minister of the Interior says that this is the last Statistics that the platform has made public, where five Romanian cities are among the top 100 cities in the world in terms of citizen safety,” Bode said.

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