Yemen and Somalia Look to the Gulf of Aden for a Reset — Trade, Flights, and a Security Hedge
On a warm Sunday in Aden, inside a government building that has seen more than its share of chapter changes, Yemen’s Transport Minister Dr. Abdisalam Hamid sat down with Somalia’s ambassador, Abdulhakim Mohamed, to talk about rebuilding old routes across a troubled sea. The meeting didn’t produce the flashy, sweeping pledges that crowd the diplomatic calendar. Yet in a region where small steps often foreshadow bigger shifts, their agenda—maritime traffic, air links, and a tighter net against smuggling—felt quietly consequential.
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Old ties, new pressures
Yemen and Somalia are bound by a narrow ribbon of water and a deep well of history. For centuries, traders and families moved between Aden and Berbera, Mukalla and Bosaso, in wooden dhows and on crowded flights. The Gulf of Aden today is still one of the world’s busiest chokepoints, linking the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and Suez Canal. Roughly a tenth of global trade passes this way. When it functions, both shores benefit. When it doesn’t, the ripple effects are global.
The regional context is hard to ignore. Yemen’s war has fragmented state institutions and starved ports of investment. Somalia, meanwhile, has clawed back ground against al-Shabaab while rebuilding its economy and civil aviation from years of conflict. Add to that a newer complication: the Red Sea security crisis that has diverted shipping lanes and upended insurance calculations since late 2023. It has reminded everyone from shippers to ministers that the shortest route isn’t always the safest—and that neighbors matter.
What Aden and Mogadishu want
According to officials present at the Aden meeting, the talks focused on nuts-and-bolts measures to reopen and regularize exchanges:
- Speeding up cargo flows between ports on both sides of the Gulf of Aden.
- Facilitating operating licenses for Somali carriers to launch direct flights to Yemen.
- Coordinating against smuggling networks that move weapons and contraband out of the Horn of Africa.
Dr. Hamid, who has made modernization of transport a rare bright spot in Yemen’s uneven recovery, said the ministry “is ready to promote trade and economic exchanges” with Somalia and will support new air links by Somali airlines. In a pointed detail for a country trying to knit together far-flung cities, he added: “Yemeni government plans to purchase two small aircraft for domestic flights, which could also be used for regional routes between Yemen, Somalia, and neighbouring countries.”
Ambassador Mohamed welcomed the overture and stressed Somalia’s desire to deepen “brotherly relations.” It was diplomatic phrasing, but it landed in a room where both sides know the stakes: trade that doesn’t move through state channels often bleeds into illicit flows that fund armed groups and distort local economies.
Trade routes are also security routes
Behind the polite communiqués is an urgency born of security concerns. In recent months, U.S. government reporting has pointed to growing links between Somalia’s al-Shabaab and Yemen’s Houthi movement—an alarming prospect given both groups’ ability to finance themselves through smuggling and taxation in areas under their control. For Aden and Mogadishu, more formal trade and more reliable air and sea corridors are not just economic ambitions; they are a hedge against the shadow economy.
That is easier said than done. The Gulf of Aden has long supported a thriving gray market: arms traffickers and fuel smugglers ply the same waters as fishermen and fruit traders, often in the same types of vessels. Yemeni and Somali coast guards are overstretched, while international naval patrols cannot be everywhere at once. Every new customs scanner, every joint inspection team, every standardized port procedure can chip away at that underworld—but only if the rules are applied consistently and the benefits of staying legal are clear to ordinary traders.
Ports racing to keep up
Somalia’s commercial map has shifted in the past decade. Berbera, under a multi-year expansion led by DP World, has emerged as a key gateway to Ethiopia’s market. Mogadishu’s port has benefited from Turkish management and upgrades. Bosaso in Puntland State is slowly rebuilding after security setbacks. Yemen’s Aden, once the refueling station of choice along the East–West route, is trying to regain relevance after years of conflict curtailed throughput and maintenance.
Connecting these harbors could be mutually reinforcing. A faster, safer Aden–Berbera corridor for perishables would lower costs for Somali exporters and give Yemeni wholesalers alternatives to longer, riskier routes. Standardized documentation between customs authorities could shave days off clearance times. Digitized port community systems—now common in well-run terminals—would help track containers and deter tampering.
Why aviation matters
Air links are the other half of this picture. Before Yemen’s conflict, flights between Aden and Somali cities were routine. Re-establishing regular routes—whether to Mogadishu, Hargeisa, or Bosaso—would reconnect families, underpin medical travel, and support small-scale trade that typically rides in airline belly cargo. For Somali carriers, access to Yemen broadens their network and offers new feed into the Gulf. For Yemenis, small regional aircraft could stitch together the domestic market while opening short-haul connections that don’t rely on long detours through third countries.
But the regulatory work is real. Aviation safety audits, crew visa regimes, insurance cover for destinations under elevated risk—these are not press-release items, yet they make or break new routes. The minister’s mention of acquiring two small aircraft signals intent; turning that into a viable schedule will require route rights, ground handling agreements, and a clear security baseline at airports.
From words to working groups
How do we know if this moment is different from previous pledges? Watch for the mechanics:
- A formal memorandum on port cooperation with timelines for customs harmonization.
- Publication of an aviation safety roadmap and bilateral air service agreements.
- Joint task forces on anti-smuggling with real information sharing and metrics.
- Early pilot projects—say, a weekly perishable-cargo rotation or a test flight by a Somali carrier—that create momentum and trust.
Diplomacy in the Horn—and across the Bab el-Mandeb—often advances by increments. Leaders can announce a bridge; it’s the engineers and inspectors who decide whether trucks can cross.
The human ledger
Beyond the policy architecture are people counting on a better outcome. Somali families who fled to Yemen during earlier famines and returned during Yemen’s war know the journey too well. Yemeni traders who once sold coffee and incense to Somali markets are looking for ways back in, even as they rebuild stores in cities still bearing the scars of fighting. The small businesses that make this sea corridor hum—fishermen, freight forwarders, customs brokers—are nimble, but they need predictability.
In the background, a proverb heard on both shores: “The sea connects those the land keeps apart.” It’s a reminder that geography can be a burden or a gift. The Aden meeting suggests that, for now, Yemen and Somalia are trying to choose the latter.
What’s at stake for the rest of us
For the wider world, this is not a niche story. Stability in the Gulf of Aden helps keep shipping costs in check and supply chains moving. Every container that flows through a safe corridor instead of detouring thousands of miles around Africa has a carbon and cost implication. And every step that narrows the space for violent groups to tax and traffic through the shadows makes the region a little safer.
The question is whether two governments grappling with their own internal challenges can move from goodwill to grind: signing the right papers, funding the right upgrades, and then sustaining them. If they can, the benefits will be measured not in headlines, but in schedules that arrive on time, goods that clear swiftly, and a sea that becomes just a road—busy, managed, and shared.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
