Maputo — There are said to be around seven million guns buried in caches all over Mozambique - the hangover from a bitter 17-year civil war that set brother against brother.
The country sits on a vast powder keg which many fear could explode at any time - triggered by the crippling poverty which besets every corner of this southern African land.
Most Mozambicans cannot read or write and less than one in three people has access to safe drinking water. In Mozambique you are not expected to live beyond your 43rd birthday.
It is little surprise then that many soldiers demobilised at the end of the war in 1992 hid their weapons, ready to use them again. Those without education, work and food can be sorely tempted to use their guns to rob others, or to sell them to crime syndicates at home or in South Africa.
In recent months, the capital, Maputo, has seen a rise in armed car-jackings and government sources say the guns involved are often those left over from the civil war.
Senor Sousa Manuel Goao, 44, lives in the village of Boane Gegege, near Maputo. In 1981, aged 23, he was kidnapped at gunpoint by anti-government rebel troops and forced to march 150 miles to a training camp in the bush near the border with South Africa.
"They made us march barefooted so we couldn't run away. Anyone who did try and run was lined up in front of us and shot," says Goao. In order to survive, his unit would hunt wild animals, raid farms or attack civilians.
"Five or six of us would stand across the highway and stop cars while the rest of our unit would shoot them under cover of the bush. We would take what we wanted - food for example - and kidnap men to train as soldiers.
"We were indoctrinated - trained to win at any cost. We had no thought as to whether we were killing soldiers, men, women or children. It didn't matter".
When the cease-fire was agreed in 1992, United Nations troops were meant to disarm both sides. They collected some weapons but most remained hidden.
Former soldiers like Goao know where many of the guns are and they admit they remain a temptation to the dispossessed - providing a means to threaten, rob and kill fellow Mozambicans.
But today Goao is happy. He is voluntarily handing over his guns - four AK47s and an automatic rifle. He is not giving them up to the UN or to the state authorities but to a small church-based charity, the Christian Council of Mozambique CCM, a member of the Action by Churches Together ACT alliance.
In return he will receive a sewing machine - he has two already which were given to him in exchange for guns he previously handed in. The scheme has been running for around seven years and despite limited resources.
CCM have only 12 people working on the project and two small trucks which constantly break down - the organisation has collected and destroyed more than 100,000 guns, grenades and rocket launchers.
Those who give up their weapons are given tools - ploughs, bicycles and sewing machines. In a land where many struggle to make enough money to eat, a simple plough can be the difference between life and death.
CCM staff know how crucial this project is - several of them have been car- jacked in recent weeks and one was shot twice in the shoulder by robbers who took his car.
The Mozambique government supports the operation - it knows former rebels would not hand in weapons to the authorities for fear they would be prosecuted.
The weapons are cut up in CCM's compound in Maputo and the pieces are handed over to a group of Mozambican artists who turn them into sculptures.
They even make chairs and coffee tables out of cut-up Kalashnikovs. It is a practical solution based on the Bible, says Mozambican Bishop Dinis Sengulane, chairman of CCM's peace and reconciliation committee.
"I say to people that sleeping with a gun in your bedroom is like sleeping with a snake - one day it will turn round and bite you. We tell people we are not disarming you. We are transforming your guns into ploughshares, so you can cultivate your land and get your daily bread.
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"We are transforming them into sewing machines so you can make clothes. We are transforming them into bicycles so you don't have to spend money traveling to work and so you can collect the fruits of your fields to sell," he adds.
"The idea is to transform the instruments of death and destruction into instruments of peace and of production and cooperation with others".
Thanks to CCM, which is supported by UK-based charity Christian Aid, Goao and thousands like him are celebrating a newfound prosperity. He, his brother and an uncle use their sowing machines to make dresses which they sell in a local market.
"I am so happy now there is peace... I am free and go where I want. And I thank CCM for these machines," says Goao.
"Without them I would have been forced into banditry to live and to support my wife. I used to sell fruit and vegetables on the streets but often we'd have nothing to eat for days. Now we eat well every day".
Reported by Dominic Nutt of Christian Aid, London, following a tour of Mozambique during July 2001
