A Somali soldier controls the crowd as thousands of people attend a protest rally in Mogadishu, Somalia, angry with an agreement signed between Ethiopia and the breakaway region of Somaliland to give landlocked Ethiopia access to its shoreline, January 3, 2024
EGYPT will back Somalia’s efforts to block a deal between Ethiopia and Somaliland that would give Ethiopia access to seaports and a possible naval base, the Somali government said today.
Somaliland is an internationally unrecognised breakaway territory of Somalia, and the latter said that Ethiopia’s initiative constituted “aggression” and violated its sovereignty.
Ethiopia has lacked a coastline since Eritrea gained independence in 1993, and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has said access to the sea is an “existential” question for his country. The Somaliland deal would give it commercial and naval use of seaports and a 50-year lease of part of the coast, in return for a promise of diplomatic recognition at an unspecified date.
We must remember Morocco’s land grab of the Sahrawi people’s territory continues with French and British support, writes BERT SCHOUWENBURG, looking into the origins of the annexation