Somalia Is Not for Sale: A Closer Look at Turkey’s Growing Power. A Wake-Up Call to the Somali People

Two Turkish companies run the two biggest doors into Somalia’s economy. Albayrak runs the seaport in Mogadishu while Favori runs the airport. They’re separate businesses with separate deals, and it’s important not to mix them up, but together, their position should worry any Somali paying attention.

By Burhaan M Diriiye

Here’s why. According to the World Bank, most of the federal government’s revenue has historically come through Mogadishu, and exclusively through customs at the port and airport. Trade taxes made up 60% of federal tax revenue back in 2019. So, when two Turkish operators control those two facilities, they’re successfully controlling the channels through which a huge share of the government’s money flows.

Somalia’s own Financial Governance Committee looked into how these concession deals were handed out and didn’t like what it found. It called the whole system “ad hoc, opaque and non-competitive.” All 16 contracts it reviewed had been awarded without any competitive bidding. On the port deal particularly, the committee said there was no clear logic behind how revenue was split, no real way to measure implementation, and a real risk that government revenue was being suppressed.

To be fair, the port has done some genuine good. In 2020, Somalia announced a renegotiated 14-year concession that came with a $50 million commitment to rehabilitate the port over five years. That’s a promise to invest money, not a yearly payment to Somalia, and people sometimes confuse the two. But better infrastructure doesn’t excuse the lack of open bidding or transparent books. Somalia can’t really claim to control its own economic gateways when foreign companies hold all the financial information and Somali institutions can’t even confirm what they’re owed.

Rewind to August 2011: famine was tearing through Somalia, and most of the world was hanging back. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish prime minister at the time, flew into Mogadishu with his family, his ministers, and a large delegation. Turkey sent aid, reopened its embassy, helped rebuild roads and hospitals, and helped reconnect Somalia to international air travel. Somalis have every reason to be grateful for that. But gratefulness shouldn’t be a blank check.

Fifteen years on, Turkey’s footprint in Somalia goes way outside humanitarian work. Turkish companies run the country’s main port and airport. Turkey trains and arms Somali security forces, keeps a growing military presence there, is drilling for oil and gas, and now controls fishing licenses in Somali waters too. In other words, Ankara has gone from helping out during a crisis to holding major switches of power over Somalia’s economy, security, and natural resources.

The real question isn’t whether Turkey helped Somalia, it clearly did. The question is whether that help bought Turkey enough goodwill to secure secretive contracts, one-sided resource deals, and a level of military influence that now limits Somalia’s ability to make its own decisions.

This isn’t meant to stir up hostility toward Turkish people or reject every Turkish project outright. It’s a call for something more useful: publish the contracts, run independent audits, let Parliament actually oversee these deals, and stop letting past charity excuse present confidentiality.

Turkey’s Help Was Real

Let’s give credit where it’s due. President Erdoğan’s visits to famine-stricken Mogadishu on August 19, 2011 was a big deal, foreign leaders just weren’t showing up like that. Turkish citizens donated generously to relief efforts, and Turkish organizations became a noticeable presence in reconstruction work.

The Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Training and Research Hospital opened in 2015. It has around 250 beds, sees roughly 40,000 patients a month, and has trained Somali medical specialists, including, according to the hospital, the country’s only two thoracic surgeons. Turkish agencies also paved about 35 kilometers of roads in Mogadishu.

In March 2012, Turkish Airlines started flying to Mogadishu, the first major airline in over two decades to connect Somalia directly to a global hub. Worth noting: the airline restored flights, but it didn’t rebuild the airport itself.

Turkey also strengthened Somalia’s government financially when there weren’t many other options. In 2013, roughly $4.5 million a month was physically carried into Mogadishu in cash, because normal banking channels didn’t exist yet. That money helped pay government salaries.

All of this earned Turkey real goodwill. The problem starts when that goodwill gets treated as currency that can buy closed door contracts, weak oversight, or permanent control of strategic assets. A friend can help a country without being above that country’s laws.

Follow the Money: What’s Happening at the Airport

This isn’t assumption, it’s on the record, in an official government audit. Somalia’s own Auditor General reviewed the books at Aden Adde International Airport, run by the Turkish company Favori, and the findings are unfavorable. Favori was contractually required to hand over 25 percent of the airport’s gross revenue to the Somali government. Full stop, no uncertainty, that’s the deal Favori signed.

In the 2021 to 2022 financial year, Favori reported $46.8 million in gross revenue. That means Somalia should have gotten roughly $11.7 million. Instead, after about $744,000 in legitimate deductions and nearly $5 million in deductions the audit flagged as improper or illegal, Favori paid Somalia just under $6 million, about 13 percent of gross revenue instead of the promised 25 percent.

To be specific about what that means: it’s not that an unexplained chunk of money disappearing into a secret account somewhere. What the audit actually found is that close to $5 million was deducted on grounds the auditors rejected, leaving Somalia with roughly half of what it was owed. That’s serious enough on its own, no exaggeration needed.

And the audit didn’t stop there. It documented, on the record, that Favori never submitted audited financial statements, didn’t deposit the government’s full share into the Treasury Single Account, skipped a mandatory road expansion project, and staffed every management position with non-Somalis. It also confirmed the concession was never reviewed by the Inter-Ministerial Concessions Committee; a step legally required under Somalia’s 2016 procurement law. This is a government watchdog laying out, in black and white, that a foreign operator ran the country’s main airport in violation of its own contract and Somalia’s own procurement law.

Here is the uncomfortable question the audit itself forces onto the table: if a foreign company controls how much revenue gets collected at the airport, and Somalia’s own auditors can’t get complete, audited financial statements out of them, who actually holds the power there?

Cash Leaving Somalia by Air

There’s a bigger pattern of hard currency leaving Somalia that’s worth flagging too. In June 2025, reports said Somalia’s Central Bank had capped each commercial bank at exporting $15 million in physical U.S. cash per year, covering banknotes flown or otherwise moved out of the country, as a response to a domestic dollar shortage.

Market watchers quoted in that reporting estimated around $70 million in physical cash was leaving Somalia by air every month, or about $16 million a week, to pay for imports. The reports said this got worse after Ziraat Bank, a Turkish lender operating in Somalia, started offering importers cheaper, faster international payment services that pulled in local dollar deposits.

To be clear about what’s proven and what isn’t: nothing here shows that the exported cash was headed specifically to Turkey, that Favori was involved in moving it, or that it represents Turkish corporate profit. Confirming any of that would require customs records, flight manifests, bank statements, and Central Bank data that simply haven’t been made public. But the underlying facts are still worth scrutinizing: physical dollars were reportedly leaving the country in unusual volumes during a domestic cash crunch, and observers linked the acceleration to a Turkish bank’s arrival.

Somalia should publish exactly who’s authorized to export cash, how much each shipment contains, where it’s going, which carrier is moving it, its stated purpose, and who ultimately benefits. Without that, there’s no way for the public to tell legitimate import financing apart from profit-shifting, capital flight, or worse.

From Training Soldiers to Strategic Dependence

Turkey opened its TURKSOM military training base in Mogadishu in September 2017. The facility reportedly cost $50 million, and more than 15,000 Somali soldiers have trained there since — including members of the elite Gorgor special forces unit.

Having a properly trained national army is a good thing, but it becomes risky when a single foreign power supplies the training, the equipment, the relationships with elite units, the intelligence, the aircraft, and the operational support all at once. Turkey’s Parliament approved deploying up to 2,500 personnel to Somalia in 2026 and extended that mission through July 2028. Turkish military assets there now include warships, F-16 fighter jets, helicopters, and tanks.

According to the EU Agency for Asylum, Turkey sent three F-16s to Mogadishu in January 2026, and that reporting period marked the first confirmed instance of Turkish ground troops directly fighting Al-Shabaab. In other words, Turkey’s role has shifted from training and advising to actual combat operations.

Fighting Al-Shabaab is valuable work. The danger is when military assets brought in for that fight end up available for use in disputes between Somali political factions.

Baidoa: When Foreign Military Muscle Enters a Domestic Power Struggle

This is where things get genuinely alarming. In March 2026, federal forces moved into Baidoa during a standoff with the South West State government. According to the EUAA’s May 2026 report, citing the International Crisis Group, federal forces entered the city “with the backing of Turkish forces.” The Somali National Army took the city, South West State President Abdiaziz Laftagareen resigned, and more than 50,000 residents reportedly fled amid fears of violence.

South West State officials claimed Turkish-supplied drones gave federal forces air support, and that equipment meant for fighting Al-Shabaab was instead being used in a domestic political fight. Somalia’s federal government rejected those accusations as misinformation and accused the regional leaders of ties to Al-Shabaab.

Things escalated further in July. Local reports described Turkish F-16s flying over Baidoa while explosions were heard on the city’s outskirts during a politically charged inauguration ceremony attended by Somalia’s president. The former South West State president’s office claimed fighter jets, helicopters, and drones had struck populated areas, causing casualties and property damage. None of that has been independently verified, there’s no reliable casualty count, and neither Turkish nor Somali officials had explained the reported aircraft activity by the time these reports came out.

So it would be wrong to state as fact that Turkish pilots bombed civilians in Baidoa. Who was flying, what the targets were, what weapons were used, and where the explosions actually came from, none of that has been confirmed. But here’s what has been confirmed: Turkey did have operational F-16s in the country. On June 30, 2026, Somalia’s Defence Ministry initially said the Somali National Army, with Turkish military support, used F-16s to strike suspected Al-Shabaab positions in Goday, Lower Shabelle. A later version of that same statement quietly swapped out the reference to Turkish F-16s for the vaguer phrase “international partners.”

That single edit confirms something important: Turkish fighter jets weren’t just sitting on the tarmac in Mogadishu, they were flying combat missions. Combined with the documented Turkish backing of federal forces in the Baidoa takeover, the reports of Turkish aircraft near the city raise a serious sovereignty question.

Somalia’s Parliament should launch an independent investigation with real projections, one that can pull flight logs, weapons-release records, targeting approvals, radar data, casualty reports, and the full chain of command for every Turkish aircraft operation near Baidoa. Both governments should say plainly whether Turkish personnel were flying those planes, who chose the targets, and whether the mission was actually about Al-Shabaab, or about protecting one side of a Somali political dispute. If foreign combat aircraft were used to influence an internal power struggle, that’s direct foreign interference in Somalia’s domestic affairs, and the public deserves proof one way or the other.

The Defence Deal Nobody’s Seen

Somalia and Turkey signed a ten-year defence and economic cooperation agreement on February 8, 2024. Officially, it covers maritime security, fighting piracy and illegal fishing, and building up a Somali navy. But the full text has never been made public.

A claim that keeps circulating is that Turkey gets 30 percent of the revenue from Somalia’s exclusive economic zone. No official published document backs that number up, and Somalia’s own petroleum minister has denied it, so it shouldn’t be repeated as fact. But the fact that nobody can confirm or deny it is itself the problem. When a government won’t publish an agreement that touches national waters, military deployments, and sovereign authority, citizens are left choosing between rumor, selective official statements, and leaks. The full defense framework needs to be published and reviewed by Parliament and the public, its rules on deployment, command, targeting, costs, maritime revenue, and how Turkish-backed forces can be used domestically.

The Oil Deal Should Worry Every Somali

Separate from the defense agreement, Somalia and Turkey signed a hydrocarbon agreement on March 7, 2024. Unlike the defense framework, this one isn’t a secrecy, the actual contract text is public, and anyone can read exactly how lopsided it is. It gives Turkey’s state oil company, TPAO, the sole and exclusive right to conduct petroleum operations in the covered area. These aren’t accusations pieced together from leaks; they’re terms written directly into the signed agreement. Somalia gets a royalty capped at around 5 percent. TPAO doesn’t have to pay signature fees, development fees, surface fees, or administrative fees. Up to 90 percent of production can go toward “cost recovery” before profits get split. TPAO can decide its own ownership stake, keep proceeds abroad, and even bill security expenses back as petroleum costs. If there’s a dispute, it gets settled in Istanbul.

Quick clarification, because this part gets misunderstood a lot: “cost recovery” doesn’t mean TPAO automatically pockets 90 percent as pure profit, or that Somalia is stuck with only 10 percent forever. It means up to 90 percent of production can be used to pay back TPAO’s approved costs before whatever’s left gets split. The risk is that costs that are broad or poorly audited could shrink Somalia’s actual take for a long time.

A video that went viral in mid-2026 reignited debate about this deal, framing it as a warning sign about Somalia losing control of resources it hasn’t even extracted yet. The core claims in that video, the 90 percent cost-recovery cap, the roughly 5 percent royalty, and the fact that Parliament was never consulted, aren’t new. They line up with findings that Somali lawmakers, independent legal analysts, and international energy reporters had already published well before the video existed. It’s that underlying paper trail, not the video itself, that carries the weight here.

This isn’t an extreme allegation; it’s coming from the body in Somalia’s own Parliament whose job is to oversee exactly this kind of deal. Somalia’s parliamentary Natural Resources Committee has stated on record that it wasn’t told about the agreement before Petroleum Minister Abdirisak Omar Mohamed signed it in early 2024, and that lawmakers only learned the full terms after documents leaked. One committee member called the 90-to-5 split “unacceptable and shocking” once it became public. The committee has also stated clearly that the deal never went to the Council of Ministers or Parliament for review, and was signed and overseen solely by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. It has gone further still, calling the agreement unconstitutional on the grounds that Somalia’s 2020 Petroleum Law requires competitive bidding, bidding that, by the committee’s own account, never took place.

The regional states feel cut out too. Under Somalia’s 2018 Baidoa Revenue Sharing Pact, the federal government is supposed to keep 55 percent of offshore petroleum revenue, with Federal Member States and local communities getting the other 45 percent. Puntland and Jubaland — both of which have offshore claims under that framework, say Mogadishu had no right to sign away those resources on its own. Legal analysts also point out that Somalia’s petroleum law is supposed to guarantee the national oil company (SONOC) up to 20 percent participation and the appropriate Federal Member States up to 10 percent in any production-sharing deal — rights that a deal like this one, structured the way it is, would seem to bypass. No court has actually ruled on whether the TPAO deal violates those rights; that’s exactly the legal question critics say Parliament should have gotten to examine before anyone signed anything.

The terms aren’t just slanted at the edges, they’re slanted structurally. Independent legal reviews describe TPAO as exempt from signature bonuses, development bonuses, surface fees, and any upfront financial commitment at all, with Somalia’s only guaranteed income being that roughly 5 percent royalty (and that’s excluding any oil used operationally or reinjected). There’s also reportedly a “Change of Law” clause requiring Somalia to compensate TPAO out of Somalia’s own share of profit oil if any future Somali law, regulation, or court ruling ends up raising TPAO’s costs or cutting into its returns, which critics say actually limits Somalia’s future ability to legislate over its own resources. TPAO can also reportedly hand off or sell its stake to other companies without needing Somalia’s approval first.

To be fair, Turkey disputes how this is being framed. A Turkish energy analyst quoted on the record pushed back on the idea that 90 percent represents Turkey’s profit share, calling it a standard industry mechanism that lets an operator recoup its exploration and development costs before profits get split, not a claim on 90 percent of Somalia’s oil forever. That distinction is real: cost recovery and profit share genuinely aren’t the same thing, and blurring them overstates the case. Still, what nobody disputes are that the cost-recovery ceiling here is unusually high, that TPAO isn’t facing the bonus or upfront payments typical elsewhere in the industry, and that how this deal got approved is being challenged by Somalia’s own parliamentary committee on procedural grounds, separate from however the profit math eventually shakes out.

One more thing worth flagging: claims floating around social media about “$1 billion-plus in aid” tied to this deal, or a separate “50 percent” figure, aren’t backed by any published contract, government statement, or financial record found in reporting on this agreement. Until an actual document or an on-record official confirms them, they shouldn’t be treated as fact.

Turkey’s own parliament reportedly had to ratify this deal, treating it as a matter of national strategic importance. Somalia’s parliament never got that chance. That gap, one country’s legislature reviewing the deal, the other’s never even seeing it, is a documented fact on its own, regardless of how you read the profit-sharing terms.

On the ground, Turkey’s seismic survey ship Oruç Reis mapped 4,464 square kilometers of Somali waters in 2025. The drillship Çağrı Bey showed up in April 2026 for Turkey’s first-ever deep-sea drilling mission overseas, with results from the Curad-1 well expected by the end of 2026. No commercially feasible reserve has been proven yet, claims that 20 or 30 billion barrels have already been “discovered” are premature until the first well results are in.

Somalia needs to publish every production-sharing agreement, every ownership calculation, every cost-recovery schedule, every security charge, every environmental obligation, and the identity of every beneficial owner involved. Independent Somali auditors should have full access before a single barrel gets commercially produced.

A Turkish Military Fund Now Controls Fishing Licenses

Somalia’s coastline runs about 3,300 kilometers, with an exclusive economic zone covering roughly 825,000 square kilometers, a genuine national resource. In December 2025, OYAK, the pension and investment fund belonging to Turkey’s armed forces, announced a new project called SOMTURK, created together with Somalia’s Ministry of Fisheries and Blue Economy. By OYAK’s own account, SOMTURK now manages all fishing license activity in Somalia’s economic zone. The agreement was signed with Turkey’s defense minister and chief of general staff present, and OYAK described it as supporting its own investment return goals.

That alone should raise eyebrows: an investment fund tied to a foreign military now plays a central role in deciding who gets to fish commercially in Somali waters. OYAK’s public statement doesn’t say Turkey or SOMTURK takes 30 percent of fisheries revenue, that number comes from secondary analysis, not any published contract, so it shouldn’t be treated as confirmed. But the licensing authority alone is significant enough to demand full disclosure: the SOMTURK agreement itself, its revenue formula, who owns it, what enforcement power it has, its licensing records, and how Somali fishing communities are protected. Vessel ownership, catch data, fees, violations, and penalties should all be public.

Friendship Abroad Doesn’t Always Mean Fair Treatment at Home

Turkey likes to present itself as Somalia’s brotherly ally, but a Turkish court itself has already ruled otherwise in at least one case. This isn’t a claim from an activist or a critic, it’s a verdict from an actual Turkish court. The Ankara 5th Administrative Court ruled that police actions against Mohamed Isa Abdullah, owner of Saab Cafe, were racially motivated. His business was repeatedly raided, his residence permit revoked, and he ultimately left for Somalia.

One court ruling doesn’t prove every Somali in Turkey faces this kind of treatment. But it does expose a real gap between the official rhetoric of Muslim brotherhood and what some Somalis actually experience there. A partnership worth respecting has to protect ordinary people, not just presidents, companies, and militaries.

Travel access tells a similar story. In 2026, Turkey expanded its e-Visa program to nine African countries, Algeria, Cabo Verde, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Mauritius, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa, letting their citizens apply online instead of going through an embassy. Somalia, despite being one of Turkey’s closest partners on the continent, wasn’t on the list. Somali travelers still have to apply in person through a Turkish embassy or visa center, the same slower process required across most of the continent. Turkish officials haven’t publicly explained the blunder, and Somali officials have reportedly sought talks with Ankara about getting Somali passport holders added to the program. It’s a small thing next to ports and oil fields, but it lands the same way: a government that talks about brotherhood while leaving its closest African ally off a list of nine.

Stick to the Facts — Don’t Weaken the Case With Rumors

Somalis have plenty of documented evidence, without needing to invent anything extra. Nothing in the record shows Turkey directly funding Somalia’s ruling political coalition, budget support to the state isn’t the same as funding a party. No audit shows concession revenue landing in private Turkish bank accounts. What the Auditor General actually documented was underpayment, improper deductions, missing financial statements, and Treasury single account failures, and that’s what should be reported, accurately, without exaggeration.

The same discipline applies to Baidoa. Turkish backing of federal forces during the March takeover is documented. Turkish F-16 combat activity elsewhere is officially acknowledged. Serious allegations about Turkish air operations near Baidoa have been reported. But a direct Turkish bombing of civilians there has not been independently proven. Dropping unconfirmed claims doesn’t let Ankara off the hook, it actually protects Somalia’s credibility. Audits, contracts, flight records, and public documents are much harder to wave away than an argument built on rumor.

Turkey Didn’t Do This Alone

Turkey pursued its own interests , that’s what states do. But Somali institutions are the ones that created the conditions allowing it to happen. Somali officials approved these concessions, kept full agreements from the public, tolerated non-competitive bidding, and failed to enforce proper financial reporting. The deeper scandal isn’t just Ankara’s ambition, it’s that Somalia’s own leaders repeatedly failing to defend Somalia’s interests with the same energy.

Turkey didn’t seize these deals single-handedly. Somali officials signed them. If all the anger gets pointed only at Ankara, the real problems, secrecy, weak procurement, and too much power concentrated in the executive branch, never get fixed. And if Turkey left tomorrow, another foreign power could walk right through the same open door. Accountability has to reach both Ankara and Villa Somalia.

What Somalis Should Demand

This isn’t about hostility toward Turkey. Somalia genuinely needs investment, infrastructure, training, and allies, but every partnership has to operate under Somali law and public scrutiny. Here’s what citizens, journalists, lawmakers, civil society, and the federal states should be pushing for:

• Full publication of the February 2024 defense and economic cooperation framework
• Publication of the port, airport, petroleum, and SOMTURK agreements, including every amendment and annex
• An independent parliamentary investigation into Turkey’s military role in the March and July 2026 Baidoa events
• Release of flight logs, targeting authorizations, weapons-release records, operator identities, and civilian-casualty assessments
• Independent audits of gross revenue, deductions, cost recovery, beneficial ownership, and Treasury Single Account payments
• Full disclosure of every cash shipment flown out of the country — amount, bank, destination, carrier, and beneficiary
• Competitive bidding for every renewed or future strategic contract
• Parliamentary approval for any agreement touching sovereign territory, security forces, or natural resources
• Publication of SONOC and Federal Member State participation-right calculations, and confirmation of whether the TPAO deal actually complies with them
• Full parliamentary ratification — not just a minister’s signature — for any hydrocarbon deal this size, matching the standard Turkey applied to its own side
• Legal limits stopping foreign-trained or foreign-backed units from being used in domestic political disputes
• Mandatory Somali employment, management succession, and skills-transfer requirements in these deals
• Public reporting on fishing licenses, vessel ownership, catch data, fees, and enforcement
• Environmental and intergenerational safeguards before any commercial oil production begins

None of this is anti-Turkish. It’s just what any sovereign state should require as a baseline.

The Wake-Up Call

Somalia needs to stop confusing assistance with ownership, friendship with immunity, and secrecy with diplomacy. Turkey helped Somalia through a genuinely terrible moment, and that deserves to be remembered. But it doesn’t authorize Ankara to unchecked control over the facilities that collect public revenue, the forces that carry weapons, the aircraft that carry out strikes, the waters that feed communities, or the oil that could shape the country’s future.

Baidoa marks a dangerous turning point. When a foreign state backs one side in an internal power struggle and its combat jets are reportedly flying near a disputed regional capital, that relationship has moved well past humanitarian partnership. Whether Turkish jets actually struck anyone near Baidoa needs to be settled with evidence, not slogans, but refusing to even investigate would be its own kind of failure.

The time to act is now, before the airport concession comes up for renewal again, before more hard currency leaves without any public accounting, before fishing rights become a eternal foreign dependency, before military support becomes normal in domestic disputes, and before Somali oil actually starts flowing. Somalia is not for sale. Its agreements belong in public view, its resources belong to its people, and its Parliament answers to its citizens, not the other way around.

About the Author

Burhaan M Diriiye is an independent researcher who writes primarily about East African and Middle Eastern geopolitics. Having traveled in both regions, he draws on his firsthand experience to analyze regional politics and foreign influence.

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