Somalia has officially registered its first vessel under the national flag since the collapse of the country’s central government in 1991, marking what officials describe as a historic step toward restoring maritime sovereignty over the longest coastline in mainland Africa.
The vessel, named Guney, was formally registered under the Somali flag following completion of all required legal and regulatory procedures, the Ministry of Ports and Maritime Transport announced. It is the first time in more than thirty years that a Somali-flagged vessel has officially departed Mogadishu under internationally recognised procedures.
The registration follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the ministry and private entity Somali Ship Register Limited, whose general manager Çağdaş Oykun Saltaş signed the agreement alongside Ports and Maritime Transport Minister Abdulqadir Mohamed Nur.
“Today marks an important moment that demonstrates Somalia’s return to its rightful place in international shipping,” Nur said at the announcement ceremony in Mogadishu.
Somalia’s maritime sector disintegrated alongside state institutions in the early 1990s, leaving its waters largely ungoverned for decades and creating the conditions that enabled widespread piracy and illegal fishing that plagued the western Indian Ocean shipping lanes through the late 2000s and into the 2010s.
