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Somalia’s remittance crisis eclipses news of first US ambassador since 1991

By Johnny Magdaleno

For the last three weeks, Ali Eishe has been scrambling to find a way to send money to his nieces and nephews in Somalia.

From his home in Columbus, Ohio – host to the second-largest Somali population in the US — he sends up to $200 a month. The money comes from his small teacher’s salary, and he’s done this since his brother died in 2012, leaving 12 children behind.

But all that changed late last month when California-based Merchants Bank officially closed the accounts of all its Somali-American money transfer company clients, after years of pressure from financial arms of the US government. It’s a move that Somalis, human rights groups, and development NGOs claim could spur a humanitarian crisis by cutting off the East African country’s primary flow of monetary aid.

The news came weeks before President Barack Obama nominated Katherine Simonds Dhanani last Tuesday as the first US ambassador to Somalia in nearly 25 years. The post has been vacant since Somalia collapsed into chaos in 1991. 

The two events were not coordinated. Yet, for the hundreds of thousands of Somali-Americans who still have deep connections to their motherland, the scuttling of Merchants Bank transfer business sends mixed messages about the US’s plans for progress in Somalia. The ambassadorial nomination was trumpeted as a sign of US commitment beyond humanitarian aid and intelligence assistance. But, the Somali government has little influence beyond the capital of Mogadishu.

With Merchants Bank stopping, the entire country will turn into a refugee camp,” Mr. Eishe says. “It is a total disaster.” Hundreds of millions of dollars flow from the US to Somalia in the form of remittances each year.

Read more: Somalia’s remittance crisis

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

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