Egal International Airport is to re-open on Eid day after the extension of the runway and other maintenance works have recently been completed, the local press has reported . The extension of the runway and other related works took more than a year and the project has been carried out by China Horn Group contractors.
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| Arrival and departure terminals |
Egal International airport formerly Hargiesa airport which was opened in 1957 by the duke of Gloucester was originally a small facility built during the colonial period. The  Airport was expanded and modernized in the 1980s by the Socialist  administration so as to accommodate larger aircraft and offer more flight destinations.
During the SNM war against the dictatorship of the socialist regime in the early 1990s, the airport’s infrastructure was significantly damaged. However, the facility was gradually rehabilitated over the next several years by the consecutive Somaliland administrations .
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| New runways and resurfacing of the old |
The airport was later renamed to Egal International Airport after the veteran politician Mohammad  Ibrahim Egal. Egal served as Somalia’s Prime Minister in the early 1960s during the country’s post-independence civilian administration, before later becoming Somaliland’s  second President.
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| Tarmac laying machinery at the runway |
The new reconstruction of Egal International Airport was funded by the Government of Kuwait and is expected  to make it possible for  jumbo airplanes to land in the capital. All flights to the country are now diverted to Berbera airport which was built by the Soviet Union in the seventies . Berbera airport has the longest runways in Africa.
Somaliland seceded from Somalia in  May 1991 after the failed union in July 1960 . The country has since then held 2 local elections , one parliamentary election and two presidential elections.
Ref : WK
Medeshi
