Hargeisa airport averts closure

The imminent threat of closure to Hargeisa airport in the self-declared republic of Somaliland has been averted for now after urgently-needed funds were found for vital rehabilitation work, the UN said on Friday. According to a statement by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the airport will remain operational for another six months, after UNDP and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) provided US $150,000 to proceed with emergency patchwork. “This is not a long term solution,” ICAO Chief Technical Adviser Joe Brunswig said. “The emergency patchwork will deal with the immediate safety concerns and avert the closure of the airport for now, but the fact of the matter is that the landing strip needs to be completely re-carpeted.” Hargeisa airport is crucial to the humanitarian, developmental and commercial work that goes on in the region serving approximately 4,000 passengers per month from Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and the Middle East. The airport was built in 1973 to cater for the much smaller sized aircraft of the time. It was closed during the civil war in the early '90s and reopened in 1997. "Over time, erosion and heavier aircraft than it was built for have broken up the surface of the landing strip," the UNDP statement said. “UNDP is particularly concerned about the Hargeisa airport,” Country Director El-Balla Hagona added. “This is not just about humanitarian flights, the airport is also a business stimulant. The more facilities that Somalis themselves have, the higher the chances of their own developmental initiatives bearing fruit.”