Somaliland Decried Egypt’s Supplies of Weapons to Somalia

Hargeisa—Somalia received huge crates of arms shipments from Cairo despite the UN arms embargo. A leaked official-looking letter details the types, the quantities of the imported crates. Immediately, Somaliland reported the arrival of the cargo planes to AU reminding them of the sanctions in place. However, Somalia’s Defense Minister affirmed these weapons won’t be used without his consent and knowledge.

Somalia is rebuilding politically, economically, and militarily leaving Somaliland no space to air its rigid position. Last few years, Somalia welcomed highly trained cadets from all over the world mostly trained in the hands of Western elite military trainers. But the arms didn’t clearly arrive at its ports or airports. Small scale ammunition sneaked in perhaps but that wasn’t threatening Somaliland.

Somaliland asks the international community not to arm Somalia with conventional weapons as those would threaten its existence. Many Somalilanders believe Somalia should arm itself with sticks and clubs so that it doesn’t threaten its neighbor countries and evoke of the brutes of Siyad Barre’s military regime era. For Somalia, it is a catch-22: they need to overcome security threats and therefore they must have superior weapons than its enemy Al-Shabab and therefore violate the UN arms embargo or kowtow to its immortal foe.

According to Ethiopian Reporter, Somaliland’s Defense Minister following the confirmation of the arrival guns to Somalia wrote strong-worded letter to AU but so far no response. Ethiopia refused to comment if the shipments have any security impact on the Horn of Africa.

The Reporter also stated that Ethiopia’s PM facilitation of talks between Somaliland and Somalia utterly failed “as both sides failed to see eye to eye.” The Newspaper concluded.