Travelling from Germany to Zimbabwe with sporting arms is definitely not allowed. There are just some articles in the newspapers about hunters trying to travel from Munich to Zimbabwe with guns. They’ve been caught up from police and are facing bigger problems now.
I had several phone calls today to check the details since I’m flying to Zim in October. Finally I had a call with the legal department of BAFA ( responsible for all embargo’s…). They checked the details and confirmed: there’s no chance to get a permission to temporarily bring sporting guns to Zimbabwe!
The friendly gentleman at the airport department that I phoned before didn’t no about that.
No good news at all!
This is only coming from Germany ? Or from any EU destination ?
I think it’s an EU embargo but not treater in the same way in all countries.
It seems possible that some things might have changed, or are as mentioned, treated differently in different countries. I have also heard, and probably re-iterated, that "Zimbabwe is under EU embargo, so you cannot bring your gun". But out of curiosity I called the customs office here at home, as they are ones handling the forms that has to be filled in when traveling with firearms. They said that "We don't make the rules, we only implement what the other government offices come up with. You could try asking the police department, or the ISP".
Fair. So I then called the (literally translated) Inspectorate of Strategic Products to ask what they thought about it. These are the people to whom you submit applications for exporting grenade launchers, submarines and artillery shells etc. This was apparently not the type of question they get every day, and it took them a little while to find somebody willing to answer if it was allowed or not. So after explaining to the lady on the other end of the line that 'yes, it would be only one hunting rifle with 40-50 rounds of ammo', and 'yes, I plan to bring it back', and 'no, I will not be away for more than 24 months', she said that they saw no problems with that. To be fair, they quite clearly state on their website that their approval is not needed when traveling with guns for hunting/sporting purposes. But it feels better to ask, as there could be a conflict of regulations if planning to travel to a country where a weapons embargo is imposed.
So, I'm seeing this not as definite, but it looks a bit more positive. Might need to call the police department as well. But I'm not so sure that they would be better fit to answer. They issue the national firearms licenses, and should probably be more interested with what happens inside the national borders. But they are also the ones that can revoke said licenses, so I'd definitely
not want to get on their 'naughty list'.
One thing that can be confusing is that the customs forms to fill out are the same ("Standard Document 718.3" - I'm guessing it's the same in all EU countries?), whether it's a for 100.000 grapfruits, or a single Sako. For the requirements of a hunting trip, you just get to leave ~80% of the form empty. And it is also actually two documents, one for leaving, and one for re-entering your home country (or EU?), and given the "import/export" wording, I believe that from a legal/technical point of view you
are actually exporting and importing your own rifle. Maybe this is where the embargo has been interpreted differently in various EU countries?
EDIT: Just checked the website of the police department, and there they say that "If you hold a national firearms license and you plan to go abroad for hunting/sporting purposes, you do not need to apply for a permit from the police department, but you do need to report it to the customs". I'm thinking that this is customs document described above. Embargoes are not mentioned at all.
