Financial Assets: Savings and Remittances

3.3 Financial Assets: Savings and Remittances

Iraqis: Running Out of Savings, Relying on

to collect rent money from tenants living in the house

Remittances her late husband built. 9 We also heard of a case of an

Iraqi man who was arrested because he received a large

Iraqis and refugee service providers interviewed in the course money transfer from Iraq of $7,000 and the police claimed of this project indicated that many Iraqi refugees continue to

he was using the money to aid terrorists. The police

live on their savings. There is a general perception that Iraqi confiscated the funds and detained the man. UNHCR- refugees are fairly well off. However, the Iraqi refugees we Egypt got involved and presented him with the option of spoke with worried that these resources were diminishing deportation to Iraq or going to another country. He chose quickly, and we heard reports that some Iraqi families to go to Syria because he had business connections there. had reached such a precarious position that they had to choose between educating their children and paying for

A survey of Iraqi households conducted by the World Health

medication. While it is probably true that savings or funds Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health (MOH) from property sales are drying up, visits to Iraqi households indicated that an estimated 60 per cent of Iraqi households suggest that they are trying to hold onto urban, middle- do not have sufficient financial support because of lack of class standards of living and are better off than African resources to meet their basic or other special needs (WHO and refugees living in Cairo. Even though most Iraqi apartments MOH 2009). However, that means that 40 per cent are doing we visited were sparsely furnished, many were located in relatively well. If they could work legally in Cairo, the majority nice residential neighborhoods, primarily in 6th of October. of Iraqi households would most likely be self-sufficient. Furthermore, each household we visited had a television,

Other Refugees

most interviewed Iraqi refugees had Internet and cell phones as well as basic but sufficient furniture for household Some Sudanese, Somali and Ethiopian refugees we members. In contrast, most Sudanese and Somali refugees interviewed also received money from friends and lived in overcrowded dwellings in poor neighborhoods in relatives. The Somalis who received remittances from central Cairo with insufficient furniture and few amenities. their families did not work, and some were able to Many lived with roommates—extended family members or pay for their education with this money. However, the non-relatives—whereas Iraqis did not. Some African refugee sums were small and rarely exceeded a couple hundred women opted to work as live-in domestics simply because dollars every few months. No African refugees reported they could not afford to rent a room, much less an apartment. having any savings. As one Ethiopian woman told us:

To supplement their dwindling savings, a considerable

I work six days a week and more than 16 hours a day and number of Iraqi households continue to receive remittances,

the pay is very little. I don’t have any savings and my life either from properties in Iraq or relatives living in Iraq

is from hand to mouth and I am worried about my future. or elsewhere in the world. In one of the first Iraqi families

Every African refugee interviewed expressed similar we interviewed, the mother—a middle-age widow with concerns about their vulnerabilities from living “hand to an engineering degree from an American university— mouth.” Those refugees with closed files are even more told us that she would not register with UNHCR-Egypt vulnerable since they lack the ability to receive services because then she would not be able to travel to Baghdad and cash assistance from Caritas and similar organizations.