Two weeks go by, and at least one new maritime agreement on the Somali peninsula has reared its head, with another retaliatory pact to potentially soon follow. The first was between Taiwan and Somaliland, following Hargeisa's Foreign Minister Abdirahman Dahir Osman's visit to Taipei in late July, during which he secured a cooperation agreement between the coastguards of Taiwan and Somaliland. And the inevitable Beijing-Mogadishu response has now arrived, with the Chinese Embassy in Somalia announcing that it has discussed enhancing "cooperation" with the federal government's Coast Guard. As ever, the officials reaffirmed their commitment to "safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity of China and Somalia."
On 26 April 1937, the Spanish town of Guernica was reduced to rubble by German Luftwaffe bombers. Conducted in support of Franco's nationalist troops, the bombing marked a turning point in modern warfare, where civilians were considered no longer collateral damage — they were targets. A few weeks later, Pablo Picasso transformed the event into an enduring visual outcry: Guernica, a monumental black-and-white painting that captured the agony of civilians crushed beneath impersonal, mechanised violence. Nearly a century later, under a different sky — that of northern Ethiopia — the weapons have changed. Drones now replace planes, and the devastation they inflict is quieter, remote-controlled, but no less lethal. Today, the war is waged by algorithms, and yet the bodies are still real.
Somalia's latest plunging crisis has divided not only the usual domestic political actors but the 'international community' as well - if such a thing even exists anymore. Though nominally on the same page in regard to fighting Al-Shabaab, foreign perspectives on the diagnosis of Somalia's ills – and the appropriate remedies -- have proven radically different. And since Al-Shabaab's dramatic territorial advances beginning late February, many of the international responses to the country's escalating political and security emergencies have been working at cross purposes with one another. Meanwhile, Villa Somalia's interactions with foreign partners have continued to vacillate between blatant rent-seeking and hypernationalism.
Somalia’s President Mohammed Abdullahi Farmaajo faces increasing international isolation and domestic financial collapse, prompting a strategic “Look East” pivot. Relations with Somalia’s traditional Western partners, particularly the EU, have deteriorated over the electoral crisis, which Farmaajo bears primary responsibility for. In late 2020, the EU withheld budgetary assistance to pressure the regime, creating a major shortfall that hindered civil service and military payments. Despite this, Villa Somalia maintained the illusion of electoral progress through piecemeal negotiations, while planning for a unilateral term extension. As Western support waned, Farmaajo dispatched emissaries to the Gulf, Turkey, North Africa, and China, but key allies, including Egypt and Qatar, have been slow or reluctant to provide assistance. In a sign of growing desperation, the regime is now turning to Russia and other long-standing partners to secure financial backing. The Somali government faces mounting challenges: empty coffers, unpaid soldiers, civil servants going months without salaries, and the risk of mutinies. The coming weeks may prove decisive for Farmaajo’s ability to sustain his extended mandate, as the viability of his administration increasingly depends on foreign assistance and his capacity to maintain internal loyalty. Without a major external boost, the regime’s survival is in serious jeopardy.