The runway was in the middle of nowhere. Considering the rickety plane that flew us here, it was with a tinge of happiness that we alighted. As far as the eye could see, there was no life; just bush stretching after bush till the end. The sun was at a scorching degree, and the humidity in the air was unbearable.
Welcome to Galkayo International Airport, the lifeline for a region that is barely connected to the rest of the world. This airport alone says a great deal about this city, and how it has been able to survive throughout Somalia’s 20-year civil war. It has been the centre of controversy between the city’s north-south divide, and has grown with time to become an emblem of civility and progress.
Galkayo is divided into two zones. The northern part is ruled by the autonomous government of Puntland, while the southern part is governed as an entity of the Galmudug state. Each state claims territorial sovereignty over the city and the Galmudug state has even gone as far as declaring the city as its capital. But one factor has remained crucial in the two governments’ relationship, and has created a truce that has held for many years: the Galkayo airport.
Surreal world
The airport here acts as a buffer zone and is seen by the residents as the common denominator that unites them all and makes both sides hold their respective fire. The taxes collected by the airport authority are divided equally between the two sides, establishing a fragile, yet impeccable system that has brought tranquillity to this city amidst Somalia’s chaos.
This is ultimate ‘nomad democracy’, where an airport consisting of a brick hall and a barely existing airstrip stand at the cross-section of what might otherwise have been a theatre of an all-out war.
Pass the airport security, collect your luggage, get a taxi and the world you meet barely has any connection to the Somalia we read about. The image you get when one talks of Galkayo is surreal. But what used to be a small dot in Somalia’s map is now growing into a major city that joins Somalia’s south to its north.
Hotels, guest houses, supermarkets, restaurants, and new office blocks for NGOs and the government compete in height with the newly-erected, tall minarets of the mosques. The city also boasts of social services like hospitals, schools, police stations and petrol stations. Even the former Somali army barracks in the city has been renovated and is kept in good condition.
Arabic and English calligraphic writings highlight the city’s walls, making it a training ground for artists and mural painters who decorate shops and office walls with colourful words and drawings.