Independent since 1991, the former British Somalia is still not recognised by the international community. It raises only camels, sheep and goats, but its strategic location on the Gulf of Aden is of interest to Ethiopia, its large neighbour (120 million inhabitants), which has had no access to the sea since Eritrea became independent. Turkey and Qatar have established themselves in Mogadishu (Somalia), while the United Arab Emirates are investing heavily in Berbera, the major port in Somaliland. The Chinese have a military base in Djibouti and Taiwan is interested in Sallahey, south of Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, where an oil field has been discovered.

Somaliland is unknown in France, as it is in most countries around the world. Yet it is a territory of 176,000 km2, about a third the size of France, with a population of between three and four million, living mainly from livestock exports to the Gulf States, particularly during religious festivals. In 1960, this former British colony became independent and merged with Somalia, the former Italian colony. But three decades later, it broke away after a bloody civil war. The African Union never wanted to endorse this secession.

There is a comic strip in French called “Somaliland”. It tells the often-tragic story of this forgotten region in the Horn of Africa1. The comic’s heroine? Singer Sahra Halgan. She was a nurse during the fighting between Hargeisa and Mogadishu. After taking refuge for more than two decades in Lyon, she returned to her native country where she runs Hiddo Dhawr, a cultural centre in the suburbs of Hargeisa that is both a restaurant and a concert hall.

Sahra Halgan, an emblem of the resistance, is one of the few Somalilanders to be able to express herself fairly freely. But all is not well in this shadow state. At the beginning of the year, a militia loyal to the Somali government seized La Sanod (150,000 inhabitants), the capital of Sool province, at the cost of hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of refugees. The presidential elections, due to take place in November 2022, have been postponed for two years. Journalists have been imprisoned.In Hargeisa, our hotel was protected by armed men. To travel within the country, we had to take a policeman and his rifle in our vehicle (and pay him). However, as Axelle Djama, author of a thesis on the security forces in Somaliland, points out, while there are Shebab cells (groups of Islamist terrorists) in the country, they “are unable to implement their terrorist plans2”. The reasons for this? The intelligence services, the police and the army, discreetly supervised by the Americans and the British, have the north of the country well covered. During our stay, concentrated in the north of Somaliland, we didn’t hear a single gunshot.

Conflict over the port of Djibouti

“Every day I tell someone about Somaliland, I gain something”, says singer Sahra Halgan. Unfortunately, this is not enough for the international community to recognise the territory. As a result, for more than thirty years, the former British Somalia has been excluded from the world’s financial circuits, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Unesco is unable to classify and protect the Las Geel rock paintings, which are between 5 and 10,000 years old and therefore pre-Islamic, threatened by the Salafists. Nor are there any subsidies to restore the Ottoman quarter of Berbera, which is falling into ruin. The city (population 300,000) is set to become one of East Africa’s major ports.

On 13 October 2023, Abiy Ahmed, the Ethiopian Prime Minister, sent shockwaves through the region when he explained that peace depended on access to the Red Sea for landlocked Ethiopia and its 120 million inhabitants, making it the second most populous country in Africa. He made it clear, however, that Addis Ababa would “not assert its interests through war”, but only through dialogue. Since Eritrea’s independence in 1993, most of Ethiopia’s imports and exports have passed through the port of Djibouti.

In 2014, Dubai Port World, the largest port operator in the United Arab Emirates, signed a contract with the port of Doraleh in Djibouti. It is one of the busiest ports in the world, with almost 20% of the world’s maritime trade passing through the Red Sea. But in 2018, it came to an abrupt halt. “Some saw in this the hand of Beijing, firmly anchored in the region, through the operational implementation of its first military naval base on the African continent”, wrote in November 2018 the website Ports et corridors, specialising in maritime transport and port logistics3. Since then, despite several legal victories, notably before the International Court of Arbitration in London, in its dispute with China Merchants over the Doraleh container terminal, DP World has been unable to resume its activities in Djibouti.

1200 hectares of industrial estate

However, it should not be forgotten that DP World is considered to be a genuine diplomatic lever for the Emirates’ foreign policy, as highlighted in a study by the Policy Center for the New South4. Berbera is only 250 kilometers as the crow flies from Djibouti. DP World has therefore signed a lease with Somaliland to expand the port of Berbera, one of the few deep-water ports in the Horn of Africa, and to manage it for 30 years. An investment of 442 million dollars.

On 2 March 2021, Muse Bihi Abdi, President of Somaliland, and Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, CEO of DB World, inaugurated the Berbera Economic Zone (BEZ), a 1,200-hectare free zone located fifteen kilometers from the port. The first addition to the zone was a table oil bottling plant. Hence the headline in Classe Export, the international trade magazine: “Driven by DP World, the port of Berbera is pulling out all the stops to take a bite out of Djibouti5”.

These investments are not just for Somaliland, which is content to send several hundred thousand live animals – camels, cows, sheep and goats – to the Gulf countries via the port of Berbera every year. The main aim is to wrest a significant share of the market from the port of Djibouti, which handles 90% of Ethiopia’s commercial traffic. However, access from the Ethiopian capital to the port of Berbera, a thousand kilometers away, must be possible without too many difficulties.

An agreement was signed with Addis Ababa on 6 May 2021 to improve the road from Addis Ababa to the border with Somaliland. As for infrastructure in the interior of the former British Somalia, it is largely financed by the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development. During our visit, we were able to see that the work is well advanced, in particular with the construction of bridges. The “Berbera corridor” no longer has anything to do with the rutted roads and tracks in the rest of the country, particularly towards the south. The total cost is expected to be in the region of a billion dollars.

Hostility from Somalia… and China

It’s not just the Emirati fairy godmother who’s bending over the cradle of this practically non-existent country. Somaliland has found another solid partner, albeit one that is not recognized as an independent state, in the form of Taiwan. Taipei opened a representative office in Hargeisa in August 2019. An oil field has been located near the town of Sallahey, and Somaliland is looking to attract Taiwanese investment in oil and gas. This is a source of irritation for both Somalia and China. Mogadishu has already pointed out that only a legally authorized institution can grant permits. As for Essa Kayd Mohamoud, Somaliland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, he pointed out that “China cannot dictate to us. We will conduct our business as we see fit”.

Since the loss of Las Anod, there has been a climate of war in Somaliland. Its army has suffered a rout. In August 2023, President Muse Bihi Abdi promised to “take revenge”. But six months later, the counter-offensive has still not taken place. “It’s not impossible that China has armed and financed Somali militias to punish Somaliland for its alliance with Taiwan”, a source close to the government told us. And what if, more simply, it was Somalia, of which Turkey has become the leading economic partner, that came to remind us that it never accepted Somaliland’s secession?

In its report, the Policy Center for the New South also points out that the United Arab Emirates’ massive presence in Somaliland can be explained by a desire to outdo Djibouti – which expelled DP World – but also to contain Turkey and Qatar, which have a strong presence in Mogadishu. Add to this the fact that the port of Bosato, in Puntland, an autonomous region but part of Somalia, does not look kindly on the development of Berbera (460 kilometers away). Last but not least, the ongoing fighting in Ethiopia continues to hamper the economic development of this giant, and hence its trade.

So, despite its bright prospects, the future is far from bright for Somaliland. Proof of this is the fact that, in recent weeks, there has been a flurry of events between the Suez Canal and the Bab el-Mandeb Canal, which separates Yemen from Djibouti.

On the one hand, the Houthis, a Shiite armed group which holds the west and north of Yemen, and in particular the capital Sanaa, are attacking ships sailing in this area, in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, thus threatening world maritime traffic (see page 20).

Ethiopia has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Somaliland: in exchange for official recognition of the former British Somalia, Hargeisa grants Addis Ababa twenty kilometers of its coastline for a period of fifty years. Alongside DW World, which holds 51% of Berbera, Somaliland now owns 30% and Ethiopia 19%. Somalia reacted immediately, denouncing “Ethiopia’s illegal violation of our national sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

(1)  Clément Goutelle, Léah Touitou, Max Lewlo, Jarjille Éditions, 2021. 

(2)  Matthieu Vendrely, “Le Somaliland, une ‘sécession réussie’ mais un État non reconnu internationalement”, https://information.tv5monde.com, 9 March 2023.

(3)  “Ce que révèle la rupture entre l’opérateur portuaire DP World et Djibouti”, https://portsetcorridots.com, 6 November 2018. 

(4)  Oumnia Boutaleb, “Dubai Port World ou le levier diplomatique émirati en Afrique”, Sezptember 2021.

(5)  Pierre Olivier Rouaud, 5 April 2023.