Category News

Somalia has severed all agreements with the United Arab Emirates, annulling deals spanning key port operations, security cooperation and defence, citing “harmful actions” that undermine the country’s unity and sovereignty.

After the Council of Ministers announced the decision on Monday, Defence Minister Ahmed Moallim Fiqi said in a post on X that the move was based on “reliable reports and evidence indicating practices linked to the United Arab Emirates that undermine the sovereignty of the Somali Republic, its national unity and political independence”.

There was no immediate comment from the UAE.

Somalia’s announcement appears to be linked to Israel’s recognition in December of Somaliland, a self-declared independent region in northwestern Somalia that broke away in 1991 but lacks international recognition, said Abdinor Dahir, an independent Somalia analyst.

“Many Somalis believe the UAE facilitated Israel’s recognition of Somaliland,” Dahir told Al Jazeera.

“The Somali cabinet’s decision [to cancel agreements] is therefore widely seen as a pushback against the UAE, which is accused of backing non-state actors and separatist forces in Africa, including the [paramilitary] RSF in Sudan,” Dahir said.

Abu Dhabi has long denied accusations that it is arming the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in its war with Sudan’s military rulers.

While the UAE declined to sign a joint Arab-Islamic statement in December condemning Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, on January 7 it released a joint statement with the African Union pledging “support for Somalia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, security and stability”.

Somaliland, which has declared independence from Somalia, has over the past decade emerged as a key hub for Emirati commercial and security investment, including a 30-year concession at the strategic Berbera port held by the UAE company DP World.

A government source close to the decision told Al Jazeera there was anger in Mogadishu at the UAE consolidating influence in Somalia’s breakaway and autonomous regions.

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a US-based think tank, estimates UAE investments across East Africa at roughly $47bn, representing 60 percent of all Gulf capital inflows into the region.

Somalia’s move also comes days after reports that Aidarous al-Zubaidi, leader of the south Yemeni separatist group the Southern Transitional Council, travelled to the UAE via Berbera port in Somaliland on January 8 after rejecting Saudi calls to attend talks in Riyadh.

Somalia’s immigration authority subsequently announced an investigation into what it described as the “unauthorised use of Somalia’s national airspace and airports”.

Somalia operates a federal system that grants member states significant autonomy, so it is not clear if they will abide by Monday’s decision.

Two states, Puntland and Jubaland, which have close ties to the UAE, have recently been in a dispute with the federal government over constitutional changes they oppose and issues surrounding the conduct of Somalia’s upcoming elections.

Meanwhile, Somaliland’s Minister of the Presidency Khadar Hussein Abdi dismissed Mogadishu’s authority.

“Somalia’s daydreaming changes nothing,” he said.

Last year was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since 2022, as casualties soared amid flaring hostilities along the front line and Russia’s expanded use of long-range weapons, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said.

In a report published on Monday, the UN monitor said that “the total civilian casualties in Ukraine in 2025 reached at least 2,514 killed and 12,142 injured, which is a 31 percent increase compared to 2024 … and a 70 percent increase compared to 2023”.

The vast majority ⁠of the casualties in the Russia-Ukraine war that were verified by the watchdog occurred in Ukrainian government-controlled territory from attacks launched by Russian armed ​forces, the report found.

Increased efforts ‍by Russian armed forces to capture territory in 2025 resulted in the killing and injuring of civilians, destruction of vital infrastructure, halting of essential services and new waves of displacement in front-line areas, the monitor said.

Almost two-thirds of all casualties last ‍year occurred in front-line ⁠areas, with older people particularly affected as they remained in their villages. Civilian casualties caused by short-range drones also increased sharply, it added.

“[But our] monitoring shows that this rise was driven not only by intensified hostilities along the front line, but also by the expanded use of long-range weapons, which exposed civilians across the country to heightened risk,” Danielle Bell, head of the UN monitoring mission, said in a media release attached to the report.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have been injured or killed in Europe’s ​deadliest war since World War II, although neither side releases full figures.

The UN has verified almost 15,000 civilian deaths, it said in the report, but added that the “actual extent of civilian harm … is likely considerably higher” since it is impossible to verify many cases and there is no access to areas that have come under Russian occupation.

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians were killed in 2022, the war’s first year, during a long Russian siege of the port of Mariupol and assaults on cities before the front line hardened in place.

Since then, Moscow has continued to use missiles and drones to strike cities across Ukraine. Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians, but says its attacks on Ukrainian civil infrastructure are justified because it hinders the war effort.

Ukraine also targets civil infrastructure in Russia and Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, though on a far smaller scale.

Meanwhile, in Russia, the UN monitor noted that Russian authorities reported that attacks by Ukrainian armed forces killed 253 civilians and injured 1,872 in the Russian Federation last year. Due to a lack of access and limited publicly available information, the watchdog could not verify these numbers, it added.

In February, the war will enter its fifth year. But the issue of territorial concessions remains a major sticking point.

Last November, United States President Donald Trump unveiled a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine that involved Kyiv ceding not only large amounts of land that Russia has occupied during nearly four years of war, but also some territory that Kyiv’s forces currently control.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has, however, stated on numerous occasions that this is unacceptable to Ukraine.