Somalia: Jubaland voices opposition to maritime lawsuit against Kenya

KISMAYO, Somalia Sept 7, 2014 (Garowe Online)-The newly established Federal state of Jubaland in southern Somalia has voiced opposition to maritime lawsuit filed against the neighboring country of Kenya, deeming the move in International Court of Justice (ICJ) by Federal Government of Somalia faltering, Garowe Online reports.

In an exclusive interview with Garowe Online, Jubaland’s Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Agriculture Abdullahi Sheikh Shafici said that Mogadishu-based Federal Government without factual report reacted to Kenya’s offshore oil and natural gas exploration activities: “Jubaland wouldn’t voice support for the seizure of Somali land but we are not sure the purported Somali territorial waters to which Kenya laid claims. Particularly that [Kenya] assumed ownership over [40,000 square miles of waters] off Raas Kaambooni and Badhaade coasts”.

Continuing, Shafici revealed that Jubaland administration drafted a detailed report on the maritime border line between Somalia and Kenya.

“Kenya doesn’t deserve to be slammed. People of Badhaade in Somalia and Hulluqa in Kenya are brothers and there is no land dispute between the two, also there is no maritime border dispute between Jubaland and Kenya,” he noted.”We think special interests brought this lawsuit into being “.

On August 28, the top UN court disclosed that Somalia put forward a lawsuit over maritime border dispute with Kenya. It said, Somali government wants maritime boundary dividing areas appertaining to Somalia and to Kenya in Indian Ocean determined on international basis.

Kenya Defence Force (KDF) crossed the border into Somalia in 2011 in pursuit of defeated Al Shabaab militants who at the time carried out series of kidnappings and killings in the northeastern part of the country.

GAROWE ONLINE