Saturday May 16, 2020
FILE PHOTO
Hargeisa (HOL) - A plane carrying emergency COVID-19 supplies sent from Qatar has landed at Egal International Airport on Saturday morning.
The plane was transporting masks, gloves and PPE kits arrived in a Qatari Air Force plane.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Qatar has sent aid shipments to Tunisia, Algeria. Rwanda, Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine, Albania, Congo and Angola.
However, Health officials in Mogadishu have not yet received any aid from Qatar, who typically are generous with their support of Somali's in need. Somalia has so far received assistance from Turkey, China, the WHO the US, the EU, and most recently, the United Arab Emirates.
Somalia's fast-growing markets and access to vital shipping lanes from the Persian Gulf has made it an attractive destination for middle eastern regional powers.
This Gulf rivalry often flares up with destabilizing consequences for Somalia. When the UAE felt slighted by the seizure of nearly $10 million from an Emirati jet in Mogadishu in April 2018, they reacted by shifting their support away from the Federal Government of Somalia to the breakaway province of Somaliland and the semiautonomous province of Puntland.