Reading Time: 2 minutesEthiopia’s deal to lease a port in Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland has infuriated the government in Mogadishu and prompted concern it will further destabilise the Horn of Africa region. Somalia has responded by calling the deal an act of aggression and says it will block it. Ethiopia lost sea access in the early 1990s when its then-province Eritrea seceded after a three-decade war. So far, no country has publicly backed the port deal. The UAE, which is a strong ally of Ethiopia and Somaliland and manages the Berbera port through state-run DP World, has not commented on the deal beyond the Arab League statement.
