After the devastating cyclones have left hundreds of thousands homeless in Mozambique – another terrible disaster happened last Thursday. An arms depot, with stockpiled weapons from the 1992 Mozambique Civil War, blew up just outside Maputo, Mozambique – killing 101 people. There are a lot of children unaccounted for.
A Christian missionary group called “Transforming Arms to Ploughshares” is doing the dangerous work of collecting and hauling away hundreds of unexploded rockets. They are retrieving a dozen unexploded weapons a day. They are holding a prayer meeting this Saturday (March 31) at the armory for the village of Magoanine which is “still reeling and in grief”.
These missionaries mainly collect and destroy weapons since it was established in 1995. ”Transforming Arms to Ploughs” or “TAE” is an internationally recognized weapons-for-tools exchange program that has lead in the “collection, destruction and transformation of more than 700,000 weapons” in Mozambique. They have exchanged weapons for sewing machines, hoes and bikes. In September 11, 2006 a whole community exchanged its arms for a school! A local artist transformed some collected arms into a sculpture – “a memorial to transformation and peace”.
Here is the article
and some sculptures made from “recycled” assault rifles, bazookas, automatic pistols
and a link to Christian Aid
