The United Nations is ending its political mission in Somalia on Saturday, closing a presence that began with the missions of the 1990s and ran through UNSOM from 2013 and its successor, the transitional assistance mission UNTMIS. The closure was Somalia’s own request: the federal government asked the UN to end the mission in 2024, and the Security Council approved a two year handover of its work to Somali institutions and other UN bodies. At a farewell ceremony in Mogadishu on Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Ahmed Jama presented the departure as a milestone in Somalia managing its own affairs.
What is not being handed over is an agreed referee. The mission advised Somali leaders and mediated their disputes, and the current dispute is structural: constitutional amendments approved by parliament extended presidential and parliamentary terms from four years to five, the government argues the amended text allows President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and lawmakers to remain in office until 2027, and the opposition rejects both the amendments and the election timetable built on them. Puntland withdrew recognition of the federal government over the 2024 amendments, and Jubaland has refused to work with Mogadishu since its own election dispute in late 2024. Mission backed talks in July ended without resolving the argument.
The opposition Somali Future Council, in a September letter seen by the Associated Press, called for an international mediation mechanism to be established after the mission’s departure; none has been agreed. Mohamed Husein Gaas of the Mogadishu based RAAD Peace Research Institute told AP that Somalia could find itself confronting a political crisis without an agreed mechanism to contain it. Mohamud has invited political leaders to election discussions scheduled for November 14 to 18, and the principal opposition groups had not confirmed attendance in the latest reporting.
The departure is partial in everything except politics. African Union forces will continue supporting Somali troops against al Shabab, which controls large rural areas and attacks in Mogadishu, UN humanitarian agencies remain as drought deepens, and a separate UN office will keep supplying the African Union mission. What leaves on Saturday is the mediator, at the moment the parties’ disagreement is about who is legitimately in office at all.