MARITIME ROW
9th February 2016, Kenya-Somalia maritime dispute is on with Somalia rejecting Kenya’s bid for an out of court settlement currently at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague.
The International Court of Justice heard the 1st hearing of the maritime border dispute between Kenya and Somalia on 19th September 2015.
Somalia which hired international lawyers to defend it case alleges it is defending its legal border against Kenya.
Republic of Kenya on the other hand is represented by Attorney General Githu Muigai together with international lawyers.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has previously tried to reach out to his Somali counterpart, President Mohamud Hassan Sheikh over the same matter but the meeting did not make any headway.
On Friday 5th February 2016, Somalia Attorney General Ahmed Dahir submitted documents saying his government will only “seek justice” at the court thus ruling out possibility of engaging in a dialogue with Kenya.
Somalia had been given time to explain why the case should proceed to the International backed court at The Hague.
This latest move paves the way for a gruesome internal legal battle will test the diplomatic bond between the two friendly nations.
In October 2015, Kenya submitted a request seeking an out-of-court bilateral agreement but Somalia has vehemently opposed the request.
Kenya wants the border to run along the Indian Ocean latitudes.
ICC is not boundary surveyor. The thing somalia doesn’t understand is, both countries don’t need ICC to solve their boundary despute. The are colonial co-ordinates taken by the british during the colonial period when Kenyan boundary was drawn. So ICC judges r just judges they only know law. ICC knows totally nothing about surveying & international boundaries including maritime. The only solution here is both Kenya & somalia should go to Britain, obtain the real coordinates. And after that international boundary surveyors & the Kenyan boundary surveyors should go to the site where somalia is allegedly saying is hers. It’s just a clear thing just go to google earth or google map & see where the white imagenary line is passing. This should include from BP1 in Mandera county to Kiunga in Lamu county i hope so. To my point of view somalia wants so paint a bad image by saying we r grabbing somalia’s land. The other thing is that they r refusing the border wall becoz when the wall will be finished there will be only restricted entry points where no criminals & contraband goods will not enter into Kenya easily. Anyway the solution is not ICC the solution is to involve the Kenyan & international boundary surveyors. I urge the the Kenyan AG, ministry of defence,parliament & office of the president should take this matter very seriously as an external aggression until the problem is solved. Watever it takes a solution should be available for even migingo island. You friend is your friend until when he/she strikes
Disgusting neigbour. Greedy. Reckless, thankless and disgusting.
I don’t even want to imagine what Kenya has gone through because of this so called neighbour!
of all our neighbours somali is the worst..I guess you don’t choose ur neighbours
Lol..!
Shamba ya wenyewe. IF you want to know how serious this is just see how contries around the world fight over tiny pieces of land e.g Gaza strip, The Falklands etc. In fact if Kenya was a serios country we would have waged a bloody war against Uganda just to reclaim a piece of rock called Migingo.
Asante ya punda mateke,
Why is kenya even trying to be nice? Somali is trying to annex our water and we are being polite? They are simply playing dirty and we should not entertain their stupid thought.kenya cannot be made a landlocked country! I say nay nay!
We have Cordinates taken by the British during exploration & segmentation of Africa!! Kenyan land was upto Jubbaland hoose!!
They should split the contested areas into half and move on to resolves the impasse
The Somalia forces teamed up with mujahedeen last month n waged an onslaught on kuffar invading forces. captured 14 criminals of war n beheaded 136 more.
Pull the troops out, cut off foreign aid passing through Kenya and coming from Kenya, deport illegal aliens and close the border for 10 years. No need to maintain problematic and ungrateful neighbours.
AID coming from Kenya? Really? Or you meant AIDS?