Somali businesses and communities have been hard hit by the conflict in Yemen, which has led to the disruption of trade. Somalia has a long history of exporting livestock, hides and skins, fish and sea food, among other items, earning the country a substantial amount of foreign currency.
“I sell almost 10 tonnes of cooking gas per month which I used to bring in from Yemen, but I have now switched to Dubai, which is more expensive than Yemen because of the distance from Somalia,” said Abdalla Mohamed, a Somali trader. Prices of gas have risen, as increased shipping costs are passed on to the Somali consumer.
Fishermen in Bari region have also been hit by the loss of trade.
Bargal local government secretary, Said Awil, told Radio Ergo the town used to send around 60 large boatloads of fish every month to Yemen. “Sometimes up to 150 small licensed fishing vessels from Bargal would take their catch for sale in Mukalla. They now lie idle in our ports and haven’t worked since the [Saudi Arabian government] aerial attacks on the Houthis began,” Awil said.
Puntland’s vital livestock sector is also suffering.
An official in the ministry of livestock, Abdirahman Mohamed Jama, said 10% of Puntland’s livestock exports went to Yemen.
“We normally export our livestock to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen and Oman. We unfortunately lost an important market in Yemen,” he said.
Puntland’s minister for trade and industrialization said the losses were significant. “We used to import a lot of manufactured goods from Yemen, while we exported livestock among other items. We are now in the process of assessing the situation and looking for alternative markets for our products,” he said.
Head of Puntland’s disaster management agency, Abdullahi Abdirahman, said escalation of the Yemen conflict did not augur well for residents of Bari region, whose lives depended heavily on trade.
