SUDAN NEWS(Saxilnews)-Authorities in Somaliland, a self-declared Republic in North-western Somalia, have reported offloading of weapons into the region from a ship on Monday.
The ship reportedly docked at the port facing the Gulf of Aden on January 24. It is workers of the Berbera port authority who discovered the consignment of military equipment.
The offloaded armaments included a tank, two bulletproof cars, an artillery gun, battlewagons fitted with machineguns and other types of arms.
Somaliland Minister of Interior Ali Mohamed Waran-adde confirmed the offloading after the authority’s security apparatus carried out an investigation that lasted for ten days.
“Somaliland has decided to offload all the arms on the ship and continue the investigations,” Mr Waran-adde said.
He did not specify where the arms came from and where it was destined. But, the minister stated that Sudan contacted the Somaliland government on the arms found on the ship.
Somalia, including Somaliland, is subject of UN imposed arms embargo. Thus, this incident is likely to attract the attention of the UN-mandated Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group, which scrutinize any breach of arms sanctions.
Somaliland declared independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991, following the collapse of the central government led by the late dictator General Mohamed Siad Barre.
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