Mogadishu (PP News Desk) — Since the Somaliland administration, a secessionist entity in Northern Somalia, signed an illegal maritime Memorandum of Understanding with Ethiopia in January 2024, disputes over the management of Somalia’s airspace have emerged. Mogadishu, the capital of the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the headquarters of the country’s air traffic control.
After the Government of Ethiopia initially defied the Federal Government of Somalia and sent a delegation to Hargeisa, the air traffic control staff in Mogadishu instructed an Ethiopian airplane to return to Addis Ababa. Somaliland authorities began to send conflicting messages to airplanes flying over Northern Somalia to challenge the air traffic control staff in Mogadishu.
The risk of mid-air collision increased after Somaliland administration falsely claimed it had regained control of its airspace. The Federal Government of Somalia has yet to explain why Somaliland, unlike other Federal Member States, acquired capabilities to pose aviation risks to airplanes flying in Somalia’s airspace.
“What Somaliland Administration is doing is akin to air piracy. Its leaders know that Mogadishu is where the air traffic control centre is based, and no matter how tense the political situation is, no authority can resort to actions that can cause an aviation disaster” said an aviation expert in Mogadishu.
Failure to abide by the instructions from the Mogadishu-based air traffic control centre can result in measures such as redirecting Hargeisa-bound flights to Mogadishu. In 2018 Faisal Ali Warabe, a Somali-Finnish politician in Hargeisa, made threats to airplanes that consider Mogadishu as the sole air traffic control centre. “Somaliland will use anti-aircraft guns against airplanes that violate our aviation rules” he told journalists in Hargeisa.
© Puntland Post, 2024
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