Washington [US], July 17 (ANI): The European Union has announced the creation of a hub in Moldova to combat the crime and arms trade from war-torn Ukraine, the Defense Post reported citing an official.
EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson announced the EU Support Hub for Internal Security and Border Management at a meeting of EU interior ministers in Prague.
The counterparts from non-EU countries Ukraine and Moldova also joined the meeting, the Defense Post reported.
During the meeting, the EU leaders discussed the threat of weapons, which are majorly being supplied by the West and being smuggled out of Ukraine to equip crime gangs in Europe.
“By experience from the previous war in former Yugoslavia, we still have problems with firearms being trafficked from there to the organized criminal groups, feeding into violence in the criminal networks in European Union,” Johansson said.
The commissioner said, “The hub will be a ‘one-stop shop’ allowing Europol to share information and for the EU’s border guard agency Frontex to support border management and detection of firearms trafficking.”
Apart from this, the hub will be developed to counter human trafficking as well.
Swedish Migration Minister Anders Ygeman said most of the weapons supplied to Ukraine were staying in the hands of the Ukrainian military, and “just a limited number of those weapons used in the war that can actually be used by organized crime later on”.
The interim head of Frontex, Aija Kalnaja, said that the hub is being created in Moldova because this is where the trafficking of weapons can come mostly.”
Swedish Migration Minister emphasised the need to take measures to control weapons flow after the conflict between Russia and Ukraine settles. (ANI)
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