Turkey is set to open the largest military camp in Somalia, where locals are battling an Islamist militant group in addition to drought and disease.
Somali Defense Minister Abdirashid Abdullahi Mohamed said the camp would open next month, after two years of construction, and would be equipped to host up to 1,500 troops at one time, making it the largest such facility in the East African nation. The site will be Turkey's second overseas military installation, following the establishment of a base in Qatar in 2015.
Turkey has already offered humanitarian support to Somalia, in which up to 6 million people are reportedly suffering from the effects of drought and an outbreak of cholera; and Ankara has further committed up to 200 soldiers to train and assist local security forces in the battle against Islamist militant group Al-Shabab, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda.
A member of the Turkish security forces sits inside an armored vehicle outside the newly opened Turkish embassy in Mogadishu on June 3, 2016. After increasing diplomatic and humanitarian support for Somalia, Turkey established a military training camp in the country.
The base spans one and a half square miles and cost about $40 million to build over the last two years, according to the Mogadishu Center for Research and Studies, which reported a visit to the site by former Defense Minister Abdulkadir Sheikh Dini in March.
The base's opening comes as Somalia struggles with an insurgency by Al-Shabab. Somalia was in chaos after the fall of Somali President Siad Barre's communist government in 1991; Al-Shabab emerged in 2006 out of the multiple factions contending for power in Barre's absence.
With international support, Somalia has managed to regain control of major cities, and Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo vowed the new base would help restore the country's beleaguered armed forces.
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