Turkey deports 50 Somalis amid anti-Turkey protests

MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Turkey deported 50 Somali nationals to Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport on Tuesday as anger over Ankara’s expanding military and economic footprint in Somalia spread through three regional states and reopened a long-simmering debate over who benefits from one of Somalia’s closest foreign partnerships.

The group that landed in Mogadishu – 25 men and 25 women – is reportedly the first tranche of nearly 300 Somali nationals rounded up in recent days and held at a detention facility in Istanbul pending possible removal. Some of those facing deportation told Somali media they had committed no offense in Turkey and included university students and workers; others were reportedly suspected of involvement in irregular migration. Turkish authorities have not issued a public statement detailing the reasons for the removals or confirming the total number of Somalis facing expulsion.

No official link has been established between the deportations and the protests convulsing Somalia, and Turkish officials have not commented on any connection. But the timing has fueled speculation in Mogadishu that the two are related, arriving as Somalis in Jubaland, Puntland and South West State states stage the most geographically widespread anti-Turkey demonstrations.

Three regions, one grievance

In Jubaland, thousands protested in Kismayo and Afmadow after a Sept. 4 drone strike hit the residence of Gen. Mahad Abdirahman Shub, a former Somali Custodial Corps commander who has opposed the federal government politically. Jubaland’s information ministry said the strike was politically motivated and injured civilians at the property, and accused Ankara of abandoning any claim to neutrality in Somalia’s internal disputes. Demonstrators burned the Turkish flag and carried images of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan defaced with blood; banners read “We don’t need Erdoğan.”

In South West State, residents around Baidoa have staged repeated protests since early August, burning the Turkish flag and accusing Turkish aircraft of strikes that they say damaged farmland, killed livestock and, in some accounts, killed civilians.

In Puntland, protesters near Eyl burned the Turkish flag over the deaths of more than a dozen people described locally as fishermen, killed in August off the Nugaal coast at Garmaal and Jiifle. Local officials have demanded compensation and an explanation from Ankara, which has not publicly addressed the incident.

A federal speaker urges restraint

Somalia’s Lower House Speaker, Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur Jama, condemned the flag burnings as “appalling” and blamed what he called a “foreign agenda” aimed at damaging Somali-Turkish relations, saying the acts did not reflect Somali public sentiment. He urged Somalis not to let political disputes jeopardize a relationship he credited with sustaining Somalia through humanitarian, development and security support over the past decade. Jama did not name the foreign actors he held responsible.

The economic backdrop

The unrest unfolds against a backdrop of deepening Turkish involvement in Somalia’s economy and security architecture. Ankara operates Somalia’s largest overseas military base, Camp TURKSOM, has trained more than 15,000 Somali troops, deployed F-16 fighter jets to Mogadishu for the first time this year, and is building a missile-range facility and satellite launch site near the capital. Turkey’s state energy company began Somalia’s first offshore oil drilling campaign in April under a production-sharing agreement whose terms remain undisclosed, in waters Somali officials say may hold up to 30 billion barrels in reserves.

Turkish firms also manage Mogadishu’s port and airport under long-term concessions, and the terms have drawn sustained criticism from Somalia’s own oversight bodies. Favori LLC has run Aden Adde International Airport under a 20-year concession since 2013, and Albayrak has operated Mogadishu Port since 2014. Somalia’s Auditor General, Ahmed Issa Gutale, said in August 2024 that neither company had submitted the independently audited financial statements required to verify the government’s share of revenue – a gap his office was still pressing both firms to close as recently as June 2026. A 2021 special audit found Favori had paid the government just 13% of the airport’s gross revenue that year; separately, the government received $3.1 million from airport operations in 2022, well below projections from its own financial advisers. A Eurasia Review analysis of the broader concession landscape additionally flagged an 80-year port concession at Hobyo, signed in 2024, as unusually long by industry standards, and said Parliament has not voted on the underlying Favori and Albayrak agreements.

Those terms have hardened a comparison Somalis are increasingly drawing online: the United Arab Emirates, whose port, security and defense agreements with Somalia were annulled by Mogadishu in January over an unrelated sovereignty dispute involving a Yemeni separatist leader’s transit through Somaliland, has not deported Somali nationals in the aftermath. Turkey’s action this week, critics argue, sits uneasily against Ankara’s framing of itself as Somalia’s most steadfast partner.

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