JidbaaleEthiopia’s foreign minister has warned that ammunition provided to Somalia might increase violence and be transferred to terrorists, Ethiopia’s national news agency reported on Tuesday.
His declaration followed the unloading of heavy armament by an Egyptian vessel in the city, Mogadishu, marking the second arms shipment within a month after the signing of a cooperative security agreement between Egypt and Somalia in August.
Landlocked Ethiopia, which has thousands of soldiers stationed in neighboring Somalia to battle al Qaeda-linked Islamist terrorists, has fallen out with the Mogadishu administration over its ambitions to develop a port in the breakaway territory of Somaliland.
The disagreement has pulled Somalia closer to Egypt, which has quarreled with Ethiopia for years over Addis Ababa’s development of a huge hydroelectric project on the headwaters of the Nile River.
Ethiopia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Taye Astke Selassie said he was worried that the supply of weaponry by “external forces would further exacerbate the fragile security and would end up in the hands of terrorists in Somalia,” Ethiopia News Agency said.
There was no immediate reaction from Somalia’s administration to Taye’s statements.
“The possibility of weapons getting in the wrong hands is great. Al Shabaab is a significant benefit, and in 2023 we collected huge numbers of weapons by executing attacks on enemy facilities,” said Rashid Abdi, an analyst with the Sahan Research think tank.
The UN Security Council removed its weapons embargo in December, more than 30 years after it was initially imposed as Somalia plummeted into civil conflict.
In January, Ethiopia agreed to lease 20 km (12 miles) of coastline from Somaliland—a section of Somalia that claims independence and has functioned with effective autonomy since 1991—in return for potential recognition of its sovereignty.
In reaction, Somalia threatened to evacuate by the end of the year Ethiopia’s soldiers, who are there as part of the peacekeeping operation and under bilateral agreements, if the port arrangement was not abandoned.
