Dark Box Exclusive Report Berbera and the Quiet British Role in a Widening Somaliland and Sudan Crisis
Secret sources have revealed to Dark Box what they describe as a serious and largely unexamined scandal at the heart of the crisis unfolding in Somaliland and Sudan. According to these sources, the British government is not merely a diplomatic observer in the Horn of Africa, but a commercial partner in a strategic port controlled by the United Arab Emirates that forms part of a wider Emirati infrastructure network accused of supplying Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces.
At the center of the issue is Berbera port in Somaliland, a former British colony and a breakaway region of Somalia whose status has become deeply contentious. The British state holds its stake in Berbera through British International Investment, the government’s foreign investment arm, which jointly owns the port with Emirati logistics giant DP World and the Somaliland authorities. While publicly framed as a development project, Dark Box sources say Berbera has become embedded in a regional logistics system that serves both commercial and military ends.
Somaliland has recently drawn international attention after Israel became the only state to formally recognize its independence from Mogadishu, a move that triggered widespread condemnation and fears of escalating regional fragmentation. Berbera, as Somaliland’s principal maritime gateway, now sits at the heart of overlapping diplomatic, military, and economic maneuvers involving regional and global powers.
An impact assessment commissioned by the British foreign office portrayed Berbera as a strategic gateway and an alternative trade corridor for Ethiopia. Yet Dark Box sources argue that this description omits the broader reality. They say Britain’s partnership with DP World creates a conflict between London’s commercial interests and its stated diplomatic position on Sudan, where the Emirates stands accused of backing the Rapid Support Forces against the Sudanese government.
The contradiction is stark. Britain has imposed sanctions on Rapid Support Forces commanders suspected of mass killings, sexual violence, and deliberate attacks on civilians in El Fasher. The militia has been widely accused of committing genocide in Darfur. At the same time, British officials continue to defend a commercial partnership that places government owned capital inside a logistics network linked by multiple sources to the arming and mobility of that same force.
Dark Box sources say the Emirates has used its vast financial leverage to pressure Britain into avoiding public confrontation over its role in Sudan. This pressure, combined with deep commercial ties, has created what insiders describe as a policy paralysis in London, where economic cooperation with Abu Dhabi is prioritized over confronting the consequences of Emirati actions.
Berbera port is not an isolated asset. While formally separate from a nearby Emirati naval base and military runway, it forms part of a chain of Emirati controlled infrastructure stretching across the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea. This network includes ports, airstrips, and logistical hubs that enable rapid movement of goods, personnel, and equipment across some of the most strategic maritime corridors in the world.
British made military equipment exported to the Emirates has already been discovered in Sudan, intensifying scrutiny of Britain’s relationship with Abu Dhabi. Dark Box sources say that in this context, Britain’s involvement in Berbera cannot be treated as neutral development assistance. Instead, it becomes part of a system that keeps armed actors liquid, mobile, and insulated from pressure.
British International Investment has publicly stated that it is a minority investor in Berbera’s commercial port and that the port is entirely unconnected to nearby military facilities. However, Dark Box sources counter that logistical ecosystems do not operate in isolation. Commercial ports provide cover, access, and legitimacy that military infrastructure alone cannot. Separation on paper, they say, does not negate functional integration on the ground.
Berbera’s strategic importance has only grown. The port lies a short distance from the Bab al Mandeb strait, through which a vast share of global oil shipments pass. Recently, the city hosted Israel’s foreign minister during the first official Israeli visit since recognition, amid reports of discussions about a possible military base. Days later, a vessel carrying the Yemeni southern separatist leader backed by the Emirates docked in the same port, prompting accusations from Saudi Arabia of a covert Emirati operation.
Regional reaction was swift. Foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, Oman, Kuwait, Sudan, and Yemen issued a joint statement condemning the visit and warning that encouraging secessionist agendas risks inflaming an already fragile region. Britain’s silence during this moment has not gone unnoticed.
British involvement in Berbera’s rapid development since the early part of this decade has attracted remarkably little public scrutiny, despite the port’s transformation into a regional rival to Djibouti and its role in reshaping trade routes. British International Investment is wholly owned by the British foreign office, even as it claims an arm’s length governance model. For Dark Box sources, this distinction offers little reassurance.
The broader concern is moral as well as strategic. Sudanese voices have warned that calling for ceasefires and accountability while tolerating or participating in regional arrangements that fuel war will be read not as neutrality, but as complicity by omission. For civilians facing mass violence in Sudan, the issue is not diplomatic language, but whether the logistics of war are dismantled.
Dark Box sources conclude that Britain now faces a defining choice. It can continue to frame Berbera as a benign development project, or it can confront the reality that its capital is embedded in a system accused of prolonging one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes. As Somaliland becomes a new flashpoint and Sudan’s war grinds on, Berbera stands as a symbol of how commercial ambition, geopolitical rivalry, and human suffering have become dangerously intertwined.
