The United Nations political mission in Somalia formally closes on 31 October 2026, ending a presence that began with a small political office in 1995 and ran for 13 years under UNSOM from 2013, according to Hiiraan Online. A ceremony in Mogadishu earlier that week marked the conclusion of the UN Transitional Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNTMIS). The closure came at Somalia's own request.
Hiiraan Online reports that the departure is not the end of all UN involvement. Humanitarian agencies, development programmes, clinic staff and food distributors will remain in the country. What disappears is the political office itself — a small team of advisers and diplomats whose work was to engage all parties, broker agreements and keep a record of disputes.
Why it matters
According to Hiiraan Online, the gap left behind is easy to underestimate. In Somali politics, the sharpest tensions have often run not between the government and Al-Shabaab but between Mogadishu and the federal member states, over elections, the constitution and the division of power. When those talks stalled, someone had to sit between the sides and be trusted by both. The UN was not flawless in that role, Hiiraan Online notes, but it was usually accepted as an honest broker.
The question now is who fills that space. Hiiraan Online lists the possible candidates — the African Union, neighbouring governments, Gulf states and Turkey — and adds that every one of them brings its own interests to the table.
Hiiraan Online frames the wider principle plainly: a withdrawal works when local institutions are already strong enough to carry the load, and it causes damage when the exit date arrives before they are.
A comparison from Liberia
Hiiraan Online draws on Liberia as a case worth studying. The UN peacekeeping force there, UNMIL, ended in March 2018 after 15 years. Liberia had just completed a peaceful transfer of power through the 2017 election, the first of its kind in decades, and the withdrawal was presented as proof of the country's maturity.
In some respects it was. But Hiiraan Online reports that the institutions meant to hold things together proved weaker than the celebrations suggested, as Liberia later dealt with corruption complaints, rising costs and street protests. The country did not return to war, Hiiraan Online notes, but the peacekeepers' departure did not finish the slower work of rebuilding public trust.
Hiiraan Online is careful about the limits of the comparison. UNMIL was a peacekeeping force with soldiers and police; the Somalia closure involves a political mission. Liberia had no active insurgency in 2018, while Somalia does. The lesson, Hiiraan Online argues, still carries over.
Three things to watch
Hiiraan Online identifies three areas that will show how the transition unfolds.
The first is the election. If the main political players agree on the way forward to the next round, the handover will look successful. If the process produces a dispute over the rules, Hiiraan Online writes, the practical cost of the UN's absence will become clear quickly.
The second is human rights. Journalists, activists and displaced families relied on the mission to document abuses and speak publicly about them. The government says national bodies can take on that work. Hiiraan Online suggests they may be able to, but only if they are given real independence — a commission that cannot challenge the funders, the outlet argues, is not much of a commission.
The third is security. Al-Shabaab remains active, and the African Union has not finished handing over security responsibilities. Hiiraan Online notes that military weakness and political infighting reinforce each other: each time leaders fall into conflict, the insurgents gain ground.
Not a verdict on the decision
Hiiraan Online does not treat the closure as a mistake in itself. No country can be run by outsiders indefinitely, the outlet writes, and many Somalis had grown tired of the perception that foreign powers were steering their politics. The wish to control one's own future is reasonable.
What that ownership requires, according to Hiiraan Online, is the harder part: compromise, accepting rules that sometimes work against you, and building institutions that last beyond any single president.
The article is by Hussein Shegow Mohamed, a Somali writer and political and security analyst with a Master's degree in International Relations and Diplomacy, whose work focuses on Somalia's security, governance and sustainable peace.
The UN is out of Somalia's political arena. Whether the exit proves courageous or premature will not be clear for several years, Hiiraan Online concludes. What is already certain, in its view, is that if the negotiations break down, no outside party will be left holding responsibility.
Watch the election process and the first serious dispute between Mogadishu and the federal member states — that is where the consequences of the UN's absence will show first.
