Ultimately the situation in the Horn of Africa is rapidly deteriorating due to frequent militant attacks and terrorists’ pressures in the region. Across Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Uganda, the crisis poses a huge critical challenge for governments and regional organisations as well as the African Union.
While the entire region is currently experiencing the extreme effects of climate change, the effects from Covid-19 and the rising prices of basic commodities in the wake Russia-Ukraine crisis, rising terrorism places an additional impact on socio-economic subsistence of estimated population of 115 million. Due to extreme weather, over 13.2 million livestock have died.
The impacts on communities by multiple terrorist attacks have been catastrophic. The number of displaced people in need of emergency assistance in addition to refugees escaping persistent conflicts, as a result, leading to the migration of over 2.5 million people. Additionally, malnutrition has been on the rise for already impoverished families with children, middle-aged workers have lost their way of earning a living.
Al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda are the notorious groups operating in the Horn and East Africa. In May, Al-Shabaab fighters raided an African Union military base housing Ugandan troops in Somalia, triggering a fierce gun battle. It was not still known if there were any casualties in the attack, which was claimed by the Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group. The base situated in Bulo Marer, 120 kilometres (75 miles) southwest of the capital Mogadishu.
Pro-government forces backed by the AU force known as ATMIS launched an offensive last August against Al-Shabaab, which has been waging an insurgency in the fragile Horn of Africa nation for more than 15 years. ATMIS said the Bulo Marer camp came under attack by Al-Shabaab fighters militants “using Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIEDs) and suicide bombers”.
“Reinforcements from ATMIS’ Aviation Unit and allies managed to destroy weapons in possession of the withdrawing Al-Shabaab militants,” an official said in a statement. The attack targeted Ugandan soldiers stationed in Somalia as part of ATMIS, Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces spokesman Felix Kulayigye said in a statement, adding that the military was “cross checking” details.
The 20,000-strong ATMIS force has a more offensive remit than its predecessor known as AMISOM. The force is drawn from Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya, with troops deployed in southern and central Somalia. Its goal is to hand over security responsibilities to Somalia’s army and police by 2024.
Last year, Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud launched an “all-out war” on the militants, rallying Somalis to help flush out members of the jihadist group he described as “bedbugs”. In recent months, the army and militias known as “macawisley” have retaken swathes of territory in the centre of the troubled country in an operation backed by ATMIS and US air strikes.
Despite the gains by the pro-government forces, the militants have continued to strike with lethal force against civilian and military targets. In the deadliest Al-Shabaab attack since the offensive was launched, 121 people were killed in October in two car bomb blasts at the education ministry in Mogadishu. In a report to the UN Security Council in February, UN chief Antonio Guterres said that 2022 was the deadliest year for civilians in Somalia since 2017, largely as a result of Al-Shabaab attacks.
Al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda activities have pushed Foreign Ministers of Uganda and Somalia to seek assistance from the Russian Federation. Foreign Minister of the Republic of Uganda, Jeje Odongo, on May 18 paid a working visit and held discussions with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. From a practical perspective, Russia now wanted to implement its signed agreement on project to set up a nuclear technology centre in Uganda, including on nuclear medicine.
In addition to the above, military has been on the table long before the first summit held in Sochi 2029 where President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni and Vladimir Putin raised again military-technical cooperation with Vladimir Putin. The military-technical cooperation has a long history. As far back as 2003, it was embodied in the signing of the intergovernmental agreement.
Russia and Uganda have been discussing specific areas for further cooperation, including additional supplies of Russian military products and technological cooperation in this area. A centre for the technical maintenance of Soviet and Russian air equipment has been established and will soon start operating. Lavrov and Odongo have agreed to spare no effort in unleashing the potential of military-technical ties, as both discussed at length the situation in hot spots in the Horn and East Africa.
But with the Al-Shabaab fighters raiding an African Union military base housing Ugandan troops in Somalia, Lavrov has found a new dimension to the relations in the military-technical sphere in the region. “There is every opportunity to give it a regional dimension so that it can service equipment (not only aviation materials) for Uganda and its neighbours that have our equipment. I think this is a useful process. Today we agreed to work hard on promoting it,” Lavrov emphatically said with Foreign Minister Jeje Odongo.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Federal Republic of Somalia, Abshir Omar Jama, on May 26 was in Moscow. Lavrov offered a stage-by-stage normalisation of the situation in Somalia. “For our part, we expressed support for the Somali leaders in the development of their state, consolidation of sovereignty and unity, steps to stabilise the domestic situation and efforts to counter terrorism and extremism,” he said at the media conference there.
Lavrov noted the importance of resolving humanitarian problems in Somalia, including those of refugees both inside the country and neighbouring states. Russia is rendering humanitarian aid to Somalia via the World Food Programme (WFP) and other UN structures, as well as non-governmental charity foundations, those from the Chechen Republic and Bashkortostan.
“Talking about military-technical cooperation, we again expressed our readiness to meet the Somali army’s requirements in equipment for the final defeat of the remaining terrorists and extremists in that country. I am referring to groups like Al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda. We will continue helping Somalia to train personnel for its national police,” he unreservedly said as it falls within Russia’s military-technical cooperation with Africa.
During previous years, fighting piracy off Somali coasts was one of the central areas of UN activity. Russia pays attention to the situation in Africa, primarily its hot spots. It claims fighting the threat of terrorism and manifestations of extremism, and to earn revenue from export of military equipment to Africa. It, however, seems collaborating with the efforts of African agencies (such as the African Union) to achieve settlement in the Horn of Africa – Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya and Sudan.
