Citation(s) from the GunPolicy.org literature library

Hughes, Ed and Karina Lynge. 2010 ‘Import and Export of Weapons - A Transhipment Destination.’ Community Safety and Small Arms in Somaliland, pp. 46-47. Geneva: Small Arms Survey, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva and the Danish Demining Group. 9 March

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Import and Export of Weapons - A Transhipment Destination

The main issue of arms imports and exports in Somaliland is not related to the domestic market at all, but rather to Somaliland's role as a transhipment destination for other national markets in the region. Key informant interviews with government officials, civil society figures and international organisations knowledgeable in the security sector have all indicated that weapons commonly transit Somaliland destined for conflict mainly in south central Somalia, but also in other conflict areas such as Ethiopia's Ogaden region.

Although weapons from other countries such as Eritrea have been reported as supplying insurgents in south central Somalia with weapons - the latter frequently by small boats, plausibly using Somaliland's territorial waters, the main source of weapons imported by businessmen for shipment through the country, according to key informants interviewed in Somaliland and corroborated by the UN's Monitoring Group on Somalia, is Yemen. At between only 100 and 170 miles from the coast of Somaliland, even small boats can transport shipments of arms and munitions across the Gulf of Aden to remote locations on the coast East of Berbera.

The nascent Somaliland coastguard has little capacity to disrupt these supply routes. From the coast, importers allegedly transfer their shipments to vehicles and exploit the contested corridor of land between eastern Somaliland and the west of Puntland, where the Rule of Law is weak, to move their loads south and either into southern Puntland and on from there to Mogadishu, or into eastern Ethiopia.

ID: Q5283

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