UN: remittances vital for Somalis, hard to get aid to Syrians

London-based Barclays announced in June it would stop offering banking services to some Somali transfer firms because it feared funds might end up in the hands of "terrorists" in the Horn of Africa nation slowly emerging from two decades of conflict.

Many of Somalia’s 10 million people rely on the $1.2 billion or so in remittances sent to them every year by relatives around the world to put food on the table, pay the rent and send their children to school.

“We are very worried about this. Somalia as you know is very, very fragile. Now, compounding the vulnerability of the people, the whole question of being able to access the remittances is a huge concern,” John Ging, director of operations for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters in Bogota on Tuesday.

Around 20 percent of all remittances come from the United States. But most U.S. banks have stopped offering remittance services to Somalis living there because of counter-terrorism regulations.

With no formal banking system in Somalia, this means families face being unable to receive cash sent by friends and relatives living abroad that they need to survive.

“This is a country populated by the people who have suffered the consequences of the absence of so many structures and infrastructures that you need to just function. And the removal of another will just compound their plight. When in actual fact, what we need to see happening in Somalia is the opposite - that people have access, to rebuild their lives and rebuild the economy,” Ging said.

If banks stopped offering remittance services, this would have a direct humanitarian impact on Somalia, which has barely emerged from famine in several parts of the country, Ging said.

“While world attention is focused on Syria, we should not forget that the conditions that led to the famine two years ago are very much still present in Somalia,” he said.

Keydmedia Online - Mogadishu Office | Agencies