A WDM Editorial
Garowe, Puntland, Somalia; Toronto, Canada
A social media post attributed to Ethiopia’s Institute of Foreign Affairs (IFA), reportedly showing Somaliland separated from or erasing Somalia, has again set off alarm across Somali social media. WDM has not independently viewed the clip in question, and readers should treat the specific image’s content and date as unconfirmed pending direct verification. What can be established, and what matters more than any single graphic, is the institutional and historical context the incident sits inside.
The pattern is real
This is not the first time. In May 2019, Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a map that erased Somalia altogether while showing Somaliland as a separate entity. The ministry apologized within days, saying the map had “crept” onto its website and calling the error “unacceptable.” No one at the time offered a convincing account of how a map with that specific configuration, Somalia gone, Somaliland present, made it onto an official government platform by accident.
Seven years on, the recurrence of a similar visual from IFA lands differently. IFA is not a random commentator. By its own account, it operates as a think tank within Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tasked with shaping the country’s foreign policy positions. That institutional link is worth stating plainly rather than assuming: it means Mogadishu has standing to demand an official response, not just a deleted post, and it means Addis Ababa cannot dismiss the episode as the work of an unaffiliated blogger. It is also fair to note, for balance, that IFA’s own social media presence describes itself as “independent,” a tension between self-description and institutional reality that any formal Somali complaint should point to directly rather than paper over.
Why the timing matters
Whatever the truth of this specific image, it arrives against a documented sequence that gives it weight:
January 2024: Ethiopia signed a memorandum of understanding with Somaliland for Red Sea access, which Somaliland’s leadership described as including Ethiopian recognition in exchange for a 50-year lease. Mogadishu called it a violation of its territorial sovereignty.
December 11, 2024: Under Turkish mediation, Ethiopia and Somalia signed the Ankara Declaration, in which both governments “reaffirmed their respect and commitment to one another’s sovereignty, unity, independence, and territorial integrity,” with any Ethiopian sea access to be negotiated while respecting Somalia’s territorial integrity.
Ongoing: Ethiopia remains one of AUSSOM’s principal troop contributors, with roughly 2,500 personnel authorized under the mission, a security relationship Mogadishu still needs even as it disputes Addis Ababa’s conduct elsewhere.
A map that dissolves Somalia’s borders, published by an institution sitting inside the same ministry that signed Ankara, does not square with the spirit of that declaration. Whether the specific image reflects deliberate signaling or institutional carelessness, the recurrence itself is the story: this is the second documented instance of an official Ethiopian platform erasing Somalia while recognizing Somaliland, not an isolated glitch.
What actually works
The instinct to demand expulsion of Ethiopian troops or a severed embassy is understandable and, on the present facts, premature. Ethiopia’s AUSSOM presence is a security cost Somalia still needs while its own forces mature, not a favor Addis Ababa is extending. Trading that leverage away in anger would cost Mogadishu more than it costs Addis Ababa.
The more durable response is institutional:
A formal démarche, not a social media statement, demanding written correction from both IFA and Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry, citing Ankara explicitly and requiring the archive itself be corrected.
A standing cartographic verification unit inside the Foreign Ministry, tasked with monitoring Ethiopian government, African Union, and commercial airline materials for recurring sovereignty errors, with each instance dated and archived for AU and UN reference.
Keeping tracks separate. Bilateral maritime negotiations with Ethiopia should proceed on their own track, distinct from AUSSOM’s security architecture. Conflating the two hands Addis Ababa a lever it should not have.
Closing the internal gap. As long as Mogadishu-Hargeisa dialogue stays frozen, external actors will keep exploiting the ambiguity. Sovereignty is asserted abroad, but it is secured, or lost, at home.
For the Somali public and diaspora, the useful response is documentation over amplification: archive the material, report it through official channels, and press diaspora representatives to reaffirm the Ankara framework rather than call for unilateral escalation. Somali GIS experts, historians, and legal scholars producing authoritative multilingual maps, in Somali, English, Arabic, Amharic, and Turkish, would do more to settle this argument permanently than any volume of outraged reposting.
Firmness on sovereignty and discipline in defending it are not in tension. They are the only combination that has ever worked.
Editor’s note: This piece synthesizes and fact-checks a WAPMEN subscriber discussion thread. The specific social media clip described by the original poster has not been independently viewed by WDM; institutional and historical claims above have been verified against primary and contemporaneous news sources.