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FILE PHOTO: Somali supporters of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan hold Turkey's flag during celebrations after the second round of the presidential election, in Mogadishu, Somalia May 29, 2023.
Somalia signs defense pact with Turkey amid tensions with Ethiopia
Turkey confirmed Thursday that it has signed a defense agreement with Somalia. The deal commits Ankara to defending Somali waters and to helping Mogadishu build up its navy against “foreign interference” – a veiled reference to rising tensions with Ethiopia.
Last month, Addis Ababa signed a memorandum of understanding with the breakaway state of Somaliland allowing Ethiopia to utilize the port of Berbera in exchange for recognizing Somaliland’s independence. Ethiopia is the world’s most populous landlocked country, so securing sea access is vital, but Mogadishu says the deal is an unacceptable violation of its sovereignty.
Could it come to war? The United States is certainly concerned, with Washington’s top Africa diplomat, Assistant Secretary of State Molly Phee, shuttling between meetings with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and telling reporters “the region can ill-afford more conflict.” The European and African Unions, the Arab League, and Egypt are all echoing US and Turkish calls for Somali sovereignty to be respected.
But we’ve got our eye on the United Arab Emirates, which previously facilitated ties between Ethiopia and Somaliland and could lean on its growing military influence in the Horn of Africa to sway the course of events – particularly with African Union troops set to pull out of Somalia this year.A man looks at belongings inside a damaged house during clashes between the RSF and the army in Khartoum.
Why Sudan’s crisis is a regional affair
Fighting rages on in Sudan, with the two dueling armies having already broken the 24-hour ceasefire that was declared on Tuesday. Few have high hopes of a cessation of hostilities in the North African country anytime soon.
But this conflict isn’t just about Sudan. Indeed, a host of regional heavyweights with their own strategic interests in Sudan – and the Horn of Africa more broadly – have helped fuel the current political crisis and are closely watching events unfold.
Recap: Who is fighting whom? On one side is Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, the country's army chief and de facto leader since 2021. That was when the military took over in a violent coup, overthrowing a joint civilian-military government. On the other side is Burhan’s former ally and junta deputy Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is head of the Rapid Support Forces, a militia that grew out of the Janjaweed death squads that committed genocide in Darfur.
Both men once had close ties to former despot Omar al-Bashir – who ruled the country with an iron fist until 2019 – and helped oust him in a military coup amid a popular uprising.
The two generals have since fallen out and most recently clashed over the planned integration of the RSF into Sudan’s military. This triggered the current violence, but at the heart of the crisis is their personal rivalry over who will ultimately control the armed forces – and the country.
But many other states also have a stake in what goes down in Sudan.
Diplomatic tug-of-war. For decades, al-Bashir enjoyed a close relationship with Iran, but that started to change in 2011, when the energy-rich south – accounting for 80% of Sudan’s oil – gained independence from Khartoum.
Seeking new economic opportunities, al-Bashir began mending ties with rich Gulf states, particularly the UAE but also Saudi Arabia.
Consider that by 2015, Sudan had sent thousands of troops to support the Saudi-UAE coalition in Yemen in exchange for wads of cash and subsidies on imports. Locked in a bitter rivalry with Iran, the Gulf states tried – and succeeded – in bringing Sudan into their sphere of influence, resulting in al-Bashir severing ties with Tehran completely.
Meanwhile, under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt was keen to drive a wedge between the al-Bashir regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, el-Sisi’s main ideological rival. After the Sudanese autocrat was ousted, Cairo took advantage of Ankara's limited sway with the Sudanese military to try and limit Turkey’s influence in the country, with some success.
Cairo has not officially taken sides but has joined forces with Burhan to push back against Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam project, which they say will cut into their share of water in the Nile.
Sudan’s economic value. The gold trade has long been crucial to Sudan’s economy. Prior to al-Bashir’s ouster, gold accounted for 40% of the country’s exports. In recent years, Hemedti, a former camel herder, has used his growing influence to build a family mining and trading company, exporting illicit gold to Dubai in exchange for hard currency. A report from the Central Bank of Sudan showed that the UAE purchased all of Sudan’s gold exports in the first half of 2022, worth a total $1.3 billion.
Competition for influence in the Red Sea. Enter Russia, which has long been vying for access to Sudan’s strategic Red Sea port. Moscow is reportedly in talks to build a naval base – creating a passageway to the Indian Ocean – in exchange for sending Khartoum more weapons and military equipment. Indeed, this ties into Moscow’s broader strategy of trying to increase its foothold across the resource-rich Sahel region.
The US’ limited leverage. While the US gives Sudan a hefty sum of direct government assistance, Washington’s sway is undercut by the fact that the RSF has an independent revenue stream from its illicit trade scheme, effectively functioning as a state within a state.
And while US sanctions on the Sudanese military since the coup might hurt ordinary civilians (in 2021, Washington withheld $700 million in aid), the military maintains a tight grip over the entire economic system and business community. It has plundered state resources, dubbed by some analysts as an entrenched “deep state,” for decades.
Looking ahead. The Horn of Africa is already one of the world’s most volatile regions. Now, there’s growing concern that the turmoil in Sudan could spill over into neighboring countries, like Chad and Eritrea, creating a full-blown regional crisis.Internally displaced Somali women stand in a queue waiting for relief food to be served south of Mogadishu, September 5, 2011.
Famine looms in Somalia
The effects of the global food crisis have hit some parts of the globe harder than others. Prone to drought and largely reliant on food imports, the Horn of Africa is reeling, and Somalia, in particular, is facing an acute crisis.
The UN warned this week that “famine is at the door” of the 17 million-strong country, cautioning that several provinces in the southern Bay region could be in the throes of a deadly famine by the end of the year.
Somalia’s current predicament is a cautionary tale for other East African states that have also been pummeled in recent decades by extreme weather events and social and political instability.
First, what constitutes famine?
The UN, in conjunction with national governments, will give a famine designation when 20% of households in a given area are facing an extreme lack of food – and if 30% of children in those areas suffer from acute malnutrition. Technically, it means two adults or four children out of every 10,000 people are dying daily. Parts of Somalia could reach these grim milestones as early as next month, the UN says, with more than 850,000 Somalis living in affected areas.
How did Somalia get here?
Drought and climate change. Somalia has long been prone to drought as a result of arid conditions and irregular rainfall that also affects the wider Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia and Kenya. The problem has been exacerbated by climate change, which has led to more prolonged dry spells that have decimated livestock and water supplies and pummeled the agriculture trade.
The collapse in domestic food crops in Somalia – and surging demand as a result of urbanization – has led to a massive increase in food imports over the past three decades. In 2015, agriculture imports in Somalia rose 18 times to $1.5 billion, up from $82 million in the late 1980s. Indeed, this reliance on outside food sources has made the country increasingly vulnerable to global economic shocks and rising food prices. What’s more, government ineptitude and corruption led to vast underinvestment in the agriculture sector, which in 2018 accounted for 75% of Somalia’s total gross domestic product.
But would an official famine designation drive up foreign funding? Eurasia Group Africa analyst Connor Vasey says that is unlikely.
"The UN designation is important – it provides a bigger platform for the food security issue and increases the perceived urgency – but it comes at a time where other serious crises are still unfolding," Vasey says, adding that "many of the big financial players are primarily concerned with what is going on in the western hemisphere, which is not encouraging."
The Russia-Ukraine factor. Before the war in Ukraine, Somalia imported 90% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, known as the breadbasket of Europe. As Ukrainian supplies have been choked off by a Russian blockade at its Black Sea ports, Mogadishu has been forced to compete for limited global supplies with other major wheat importers (like Turkey and Egypt) that have deeper pockets.
Conflict. Thirty years since Somalia’s brutal civil war ended, the country is still rife with violence and mired in sectarian conflict.
Al-Shabab, the terror group affiliated with al-Qaida, has wreaked havoc throughout Somalia – and the region – since 2006, targeting civilians in deadly suicide bombings as part of its anti-government insurgency. The group also controls large swaths of territory, particularly in southern and central Somalia, and has often targeted UN aid workers, which has made it difficult to get food aid to those who need it.
In recent years, some aid organizations have balked at having to negotiate with – and pay off – al-Shabab militants to deliver food aid, while other groups say it’s too dangerous to send their staff into such volatile areas. Indeed, the UN World Food Programme has previously suspended its operations in southern Somalia because of an uptick in Islamist violence.
"Access issues are major hindrance to the deployment of humanitarian assistance," Vasey says.
"On the one hand this is created by al-Shabaab itself and its activities, but it is further complicated by the efforts of pro-government forces (and others) to neutralize al-Shabaab. Recent rhetoric from the government suggests an increase in the latter issue, with hard-to-reach areas becoming, well, harder to reach."
Moreover, aid organizations and foreign governments are fearful of running afoul of US laws preventing the financing of terror organizations. (Washington in 2008 designated al-Shabab a Foreign Terrorist Organization, which prohibits “economic transactions” with the group.) Somalia’s Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre recently tapped a former high-ranking al-Shabab militant to serve in his cabinet in hopes of healing internal strife, but al-Shabab violence remains rampant.
A perfect storm. With the UN General Assembly set to kick off next week, followed in November by the UN’s Climate Change Conference in Cairo, many politicians will use the UN podium to draw attention to the geopolitics of climate change and the inequities of the related food crisis. (Pakistan, for its part, is still reeling from deadly floods that have killed more than 1,300 people, while India recently experienced a once-in-a-generation heatwave.)
Meanwhile, parts of South Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and elsewhere, are also facing acute food shortages, raising fears of famine, according to the WFP.
Somalia is at the frontline of the current food calamity. But sadly, many countries appear to be destined for a similar fate.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a news conference following talks with Hungarian PM Viktor Orban in Moscow on February 1, 2022.
What We’re Watching: Much ado about Ukraine, Myanmar anti-junta strike, Horn of Africa drought
Busy day for Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin continued his diplomatic offensive on Tuesday with a press conference alongside Hungary’s Kremlin-friendly Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Putin previously spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian PM Mario Draghi in an ongoing effort to exploit divisions of opinion among European leaders over the future of NATO and Ukraine. Putin wants NATO to roll back from Eastern Europe and to guarantee that Ukraine will never join the alliance. He reiterated that Washington continues to “ignore” Moscow’s concerns about Russia’s national security. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is working on a new “partnership” with the UK and Poland. This appears to be little more than diplomatic window-dressing, since Britain and Poland have already pledged to supply Ukraine with weapons. Zelensky also unveiled a plan to expand Ukraine’s army by 100,000 troops over the next three years. Military action doesn’t appear imminent, but you can count on more posturing.
A silent strike in Myanmar. Opponents of Myanmar’s military rule marked the first anniversary of the junta's return to power Tuesday by... staying home. Although a few small bombs went off, the majority of citizens defied the generals by emptying the streets of Yangon and other big cities. Before the "silent strike,” pro-democracy activists had been avoiding arrest by gathering in flash mobs with revered Buddhist monks. But Tuesday’s quiet protest clearly irked authorities, who had urged public displays of support for the military and threatened to take over businesses that closed during the strike. Many shops thus remained open but had no customers to serve. Meanwhile, the pro-military rallies organized by the junta failed to draw big crowds. Although Myanmar's generals have never been popular, they must now reckon with the unified passive resistance to their rule.
Horn of Africa drought. Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia are suffering their worst drought in 40 years. Animals are dying at an unprecedented rate, herders are losing their livelihoods, and many are facing starvation. The dry spell has already led to violence between rival herders in Kenya and displaced 1.4 million people in neighboring Somalia. In Ethiopia, it’s a case of "climate change meets conflict,” according to the International Rescue Committee. The drought there is exacerbating difficulties from the ongoing violence between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Unless fighting subsides to allow convoys of aid, agencies fear that dwindling food stocks will soon run out. While dry spells are common in the region, this year's drought is so severe that some fear it will lead to a humanitarian catastrophe on the scale of Ethiopia's 1984 famine.