President Claudia Sheinbaum celebrated on Wednesday the recovery of more than 2,000 weapons during her government, within the framework of the International Day for the Destruction of Firearms, while defending her security strategy to reduce high levels of violence in the country.
In an event in the Basilica of Guadalupe, Sheinbaum highlighted the results of the program ‘Yes to disarmament, yes to peace’, whose objective is to exchange weapons for money to the citizenship, or, military toys for educational toys.
“We have achieved since this program began to recover more than 2,000 weapons delivered by families or by people, young people, adults (and older adults who voluntarily decide to deliver a weapon and receive resources in return,” said Sheinbaum.
The president added that she is “very symbolic” to remove weapons from the streets and houses in the country, especially in commemoration of the International Day of the Destruction of Firearms.
He stressed that his government has “the firm conviction” of being “building the best possible Mexico, where bullets do not hurt people, but hide, disappear.”
“A country where peace is not a distant dream for some regions of the country, if not a shared reality,” he said.
Sheinbaum has defended that the daily average murders descended to 65.6 in June compared to September 86, 2024, the last month of the government of his predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), which implies 21 homicides less per day, according to data from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP).
Sheinbaum insisted that their security strategy not only seeks to strengthen the armed and security forces, but also to address the causes that generate violence, including the disarmament of the population.
For its part, the Secretary of the Interior, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, explained that in 180 days since the disarmament program began, 2,135 firearms have been voluntarily and anonymous, from January to July 2025.
Of these, 1,585 were short weapons, 550 long weapons, 85,000 cartridges, and 200 grenades, dynamite cartridges and fulminant capsules.
He added that the weapons recovered in Acapulco and Chilpancingo (Guerrero); in San Cristóbal de las Casas (Chiapas); in León, Celaya and Salamanca (Guanajuato); Juárez Ciudad (Chihuahua); Villahermosa (Tabasco); Tijuana (Baja California); Cuernavaca (Morelos); Chimalhuacán and Valle de Chalco (State of Mexico), and Puebla.
“Mexico today sends a clear message to the world: while in some regions of the world the scale violence, here the people choose to build peace,” said Rodríguez.
Finally, the Secretary of Culture, Claudia Curiel de Icaza announced that next October a call will be opened to artists to resignify seized weapons and transform them into sculptures, which will be exhibited “collectively” in 2026.
With EFE information.
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