A few days after being sworn into office, new Somalian President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, has released $9.6 million the government seized from a United Arab Emirates plane in Mogadishu in 2018, in a first step aimed at mending relations worh the UAE.

The money was seized in April 2018, when Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency seized three suitcases containing the money at Mogadishu’s International Airport from a Boeing 737/700 operated by the UAE’s Royal Jet Airline, when Mohamud was in power.

The country’s Deputy Information Minister, Abdirahman Yusuf Al-Adala, who confirmed the return of the money to the UAE, said the “money has been released and it is on its way to the Emirates.”

According to Al-Adala, the Somalian delegation to the UAE to return the money included Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble, who flew out to Dubai on Wednesday to deliver the money in person.

Several Somali security officials at the time of the incident said the money was seized because it was illegal and was intended to disrupt the country’s security, an accusation the Emirate denied.

After the incident, diplomatic relations between Somalia and the UAE plunged to their lowest point in history, prompting the UAE to immediately end a military training mission in Somalia and also closed a military facility and the Sheikh Zayed Hospital in Mogadishu.

Since then, the two countries have frequently exchanged angry political rhetoric with tensions reaching breaking point during the drawn-out process of Somalia’s elections, which were marred by disputes at all levels of government and a controversy over the president’s legitimacy.

In April of this year, Prime Minister Roble offered a public apology for the seizure of the UAE money, pledging that the cash, which has been in the Central Bank of Somalia, will be returned.

“We want to accept that we were wrong and seek forgiveness from our brothers [UAE]. We are two brothers and whatever has happened, let us look forward,” Roble had said in s video addressed to the Emirati foreign ministry.