Layoffs, asset sales signal end of Somalia’s security mission

They will not be the last. More layoffs are expected in the coming days as the United Nations Support Office in Somalia (Unsos), the logistical lifeline behind the international security operation, begins to shrink.

The civilians will go first. Then the support structure. Then, potentially, the police officers and soldiers who depend on it.

That is the fear now hanging over Somalia’s security operation.

Only weeks ago, UN Under-Secretary-General for Operational Support Atul Khare travelled from New York to Mogadishu to reassure Unsos staff, Somali authorities and international partners that the uncertainty surrounding the mission could be managed.

But in the Somali capital, the first unmistakable signs of a drawdown are now appearing not on the battlefield, but in procurement notices and termination letters.

People are being sent home.

Equipment is being put up for sale.

And the machinery that has kept an international security operation running in Somalia for nearly two decades is beginning to be dismantled.

Earlier this month, Unsos invited auctioneers to express interest in selling mission assets, ranging from IT equipment and office appliances to vehicles, heavy construction machinery, medical equipment, accommodation units, and equipment used in military and aviation operations.

The notice, published on August 6, gave prospective bidders just five days to submit their bids.

Unsos said it wanted to establish local systems contract for the commercial sale of UN assets in Somalia, initially for three months, with three possible three-month extensions.

The auction notice is bureaucratic. Its implications are not.

It suggests that the problem facing Somalia’s international security operation is no longer simply how much money the international community can find. The UN is preparing for the possibility that parts of the logistics system itself will have to be wound down.

The question is what happens when the money does not come.

For nearly two decades, the international system supporting Somalia’s security forces has depended on an elaborate chain of logistical and financial assistance.

Unsos sits at the centre of that system, providing the infrastructure that allows the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (Aussom) to operate. Its functions extend well beyond simply moving troops and equipment. The office supports transport, aviation, medical services, accommodation, communications, engineering and other essential operations.

Now that chain is under strain.

The United States, which has been a major contributor to the financing of Unsos, withdrew its funding at the beginning of July, turning a chronic financing problem into an immediate operational crisis.

According to Khare, a $481 million budget has already been approved for the current financial year ending June 30, 2027. However, Washington will block any attempt within the UN Security Council to deploy that budget to finance Unsos beyond December 31, 2026.

That gives the logistics operation a much more immediate deadline.

Last year, Unsos operated with a budget of $502 million, compared with $190 million for Aussom, most of which goes towards troop reimbursements, with smaller allocations for death and disability compensation and mission subsistence allowances.

The current authorised Aussom force comprises 11,862 uniformed personnel, including 680 police officers. The UN separately provides funding and logistical support for up to 85 civilian personnel supporting the military and police components.

As matters stand in Mogadishu, the United Nations has acknowledged a major funding shortfall and introduced cost-cutting measures affecting civilian staffing and military operations.

“Expect more staff layoffs in the coming days,” a source familiar with the process told The EastAfrican.

The unfolding changes come as Somalia is already approaching another major transition. The UN Transitional Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNTMIS) is due to transition into a UN Country Office by October, further reducing the international presence in the country.

But while the UN is preparing for a smaller footprint, Somalia’s political and military calculations are moving in a different direction.

On August 16, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud presided over the passing-out parade of more than 3,000 newly trained Somali National Army soldiers in Xananbuure, in the northern Galgadud region of Galmudug State.

The ceremony was intended to demonstrate that Somalia is increasingly capable of taking responsibility for its own security.

Mohamud went further, calling for the departure of the AU peacekeepers.

“We have reached a point where we can now take full charge of our security,” he said, calling for African peacekeepers to be given “a bunch of flowers” and sent home.

But Somalia’s security partners are reading the situation differently.

Last week, Uganda’s Defence Minister Kiryowa Kiwanuka said that Ugandan troops would remain deployed in Somalia despite growing uncertainty over the future of the AU mission.

He was speaking after a conference of the Eastern Africa Standby Force in Kampala.

Uganda contributes 4,500 soldiers to Aussom and has an additional 2,000 troops in Somalia under a bilateral arrangement with Mogadishu. President Yoweri Museveni also signalled that Kampala and peers in the region will continue to support Somalia. He didn’t elaborate.

His minister said the arrangement for Uganda’s continued presence would evolve but stressed that Kampala already had a separate bilateral framework with Somalia.

“The arrangement that we are going to have on how we remain in Somalia is going to evolve, but … we already have a force there under a bilateral arrangement with Somalia,” he said.

At the same time, he warned that Somalia’s security partners “must find resources” to fund an orderly and coordinated exit.

That leaves Somalia facing an awkward contradiction.

Mogadishu says its forces are increasingly ready to take over.

The AU mission faces a worsening funding crisis.

The UN logistics system that supports the international operation is already cutting staff and preparing to sell equipment.

Yet Uganda says its troops are staying.

A Ugandan military source separately told The EastAfrican that the military hierarchy had information suggesting that Kenya, Ethiopia and Egypt also plan to maintain troops in Somalia in 2027.

If that happens, the question will no longer be simply whether foreign troops remain.

It will be who supports them.

The UN may be shrinking the machinery that has sustained Somalia’s international security operation for years before there is agreement on what will replace it.

And that is the uncertainty now confronting Mogadishu: whether Somalia’s security forces can take over from the international system at the very moment that parts of that system are being dismantled, or whether the troops that remain will be left operating under a new, yet-to-be-funded arrangement.