Turkey’s close Somalia ties raise questions in the Horn of Africa

By Abdi Ismail SamatarSaturday April 25, 2026

Turkey has cast Somalia as a gateway to the Horn of Africa and, potentially, far beyond. But that ambition can only take root if Somalia first regains political stability. Trying to rebuild the Somali Defence Force without a clear national political framework is like setting out on a long trip with no map.

In 2011, the West bluntly blamed al-Shabaab for Somalia’s famine. Yet the deeper cause was American policy under the Obama Administration, which blocked food deliveries to desperate people in an effort to punish al-Shabaab. The wider Muslim and Arab world stood by, despite having the means to help prevent the deaths of nearly 250,000 people, most of them women, children and the elderly. Turkey was the exception. President Recep Erdoğan responded with visible urgency and compassion.

Erdoğan, his wife and a delegation of Turkish humanitarian NGOs traveled to Mogadishu and visited camps filled with people who had walked long distances in search of food. What they saw left them shaken, and Turkey followed with substantial humanitarian assistance. Yet a decade after that display of solidarity, Ankara’s role in Somalia increasingly looks self-interested and extractive.

At the time, a Turkish humanitarian flotilla was joined by others and descended on Somalia. Once the emergency was contained, Turkey did not pull out as other countries often do after such a crisis, but stayed and rebuilt hospitals, schools, roads and the main air and seaports to jumpstart economic activity. Once the perimeter of the Mogadishu airport was secured, Turkish airlines began to fly scheduled flights – the first international airline to do so since 1991. The Mogadishu-Djibouti-Istanbul route has since become one of its most profitable.

Afterward, Turkish firms reached agreements with the dysfunctional Somali government to run the airport and seaport, the country’s two largest economic hubs. Turkey also offered a large number of scholarships for Somali students to attend its universities, and Somali businesspeople began traveling there in growing numbers.

To underscore Somalia’s importance in Ankara’s Africa policy, Turkey built the continent’s largest embassy on the Indian Ocean coast. Not long after, it constructed a vast military facility on the outskirts of Mogadishu, intended as a training ground for the Somali armed forces. More recently, sizeable numbers of Somali youth have been sent to Turkey for military and language instruction, and the first group has already returned home.

After being nearly shattered by repeated local and foreign military campaigns over two decades, Mogadishu has seen a construction surge over the past eight years. Many of the public and private projects have been carried out by Turkish contractors, while Somalis have largely been limited to laboring on the sites. Few local firms have the expertise or capital to match Turkish companies, and wealthy Somalis building properties across the country appear content with the quality of the work completed by Turkish hands.

Across Somalia, many people seem genuinely pleased with Turkey’s role. An informal survey I carried out in Mogadishu over the past three months found near-universal approval of Turkish engagement. Still, I believe the relationship may have a vulnerable underside.

I recently met with the Turkish ambassador and the African Union Mission to Somalia. Their views echoed those of the American diplomat who leads the UN office in the country: civic politics, they said, lies outside their remit, which is security and economic reconstruction. He put it bluntly, saying “Somalis are chaotic” and must sort out their own politics.

That kind of language reflects a strange understanding of how politics works. It is mistaken to assume civic politics will simply emerge by itself. It also overlooks the fact that sectarian politicians helped produce the present disaster. The Turkish government now appears to believe those same sectarian leaders will somehow come to their senses, abandon retrograde habits and become the responsible figures their people so urgently need.

All signs suggest that trade between Turkey and Somalia is deeply unbalanced and heavily tilted toward Turkey. The Turkish companies managing the airport and seaport are in no hurry to train local entrepreneurs or public institutions to take over those operations, and the private Turkish construction firms rebuilding public and private facilities show no urgency in preparing Somali contractors to assume a large share of the work.

Yet after more than three decades under three regimes, there has been no meaningful shift. Turkey’s refusal to confront that reality is driven by its economic and strategic interests.

Ankara views Somalia as a strategic foothold for the Horn of Africa and beyond, but that vision cannot be realized without stability inside the country. A military base and the training of Somali troops outside an inclusive political framework could lead to one of three outcomes: first, the military could become dominant and reduce political leaders to supplicants. The Somali president recently used Turkish-trained troops to disperse a peaceful opposition demonstration in Mogadishu, a sign that the force may be deployed for political purposes rather than for security and national defence.

Second, the Turkish-trained force could attempt a coup. Third, the corrupt political order could fragment the military into rival camps and trigger another civil war. None of those scenarios reflects the spirit of Erdoğan’s visit, and all would seriously damage the broad public goodwill Turkey has earned in Somalia.

All the indications are that the balance of trade between Turkey and Somalia is totally lopsided and in favour of the former. The Turkish companies managing the airport and the seaport are in no hurry to train local entrepreneurs or public agencies to take over the management and operation of those enterprises, neither are the private Turkish construction companies involved in rebuilding public and private facilities in a hurry to train Somali public and private contractors so that they can ultimately take over much of the industry.

Just as troubling is the absence of serious Somali government efforts to train people in these fields. If Somalis are pushed to the margins of these crucial sectors, they will be denied the economic gains of reconstruction, which could breed resentment toward Turkey and erode the trust ordinary Somalis now place in that country.

Rebuilding the Somali Defence Force without a guiding national political framework is no different from setting off on a journey without a roadmap. The regime’s recent use of Turkish-trained troops against the political opposition should serve as a warning to the Turks, though they seem to have chosen to ignore it. At the same time, the economic sidelining of Somalis during reconstruction is a social tinderbox waiting for a spark. A militarized regime combined with the exclusion of the population from the gains of rebuilding is a dangerous mix that could destroy the promise of a productive partnership.

Turkey has another option: use its considerable influence to pursue three steps. First, it should strongly press the regime and the international community to back the civic movement. Second, it should ensure that the troops it has trained are not turned into an instrument of repression. Finally, it should slow Turkish commercial expansion in the local market until Somali entrepreneurs can regain their competitive footing.

That is the positive-sum path. DM

This article is an Opinion, which presents the writer’s personal point of view. The views expressed are those of the author/authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Hiiraan Online.

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Abdi Ismail Samatar is a member of the Pan African Parliament, an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria and a Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota. His most recent book is, Reframing Somalia: Beyond Africa’s Merchants of Misery (2022).