recommendations of the Desk Study report, there are also questions to be infused into the 2022 Census Questionnaire to try to pick up data on status of statelessness in Zimbabwe. Snapshot of Statelessness in Zimbabwe 15. UNHCR has estimated in 2016 that there are approximately 300,000 people at risk of statelessness in Zimbabwe.20 There is no official data available on the number of stateless people in the country. Different groups have been affected by statelessness, including hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from neighbouring countries (Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia) who were brought in by colonial powers to work on farms and mines and their descendants who were settled and born in the country preindependence in 1980. 16. The main causes of statelessness are attributed to systemic discrimination and exclusion of ethnic minorities and persons of foreign origin, changes and gaps in the nationality framework, lack of safeguards for otherwise stateless children born on the territory, and restrictive and discriminatory legal and administrative framework for birth notification, birth registration and access to identification documentation.21 17. Between 1983 and 1987, an estimated 20,000 people were killed during the Gukurahundi Massacres in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces. People were forced to flee their homes and many forcibly displaced people lost their identity documents and were unable to replace them. As a result, those born in the following months and years were unable to be registered. Those who lost their relatives are still experiencing challenges in obtaining their death certificates and this prevents descendants from providing evidence of their Zimbabwean nationality and registering for birth certificates and consequently national identity cards. In cases where witnesses are required to support the application of documentation, many are often scared to testify about the death of their relatives for fear of reprisals.22 18. Marginalised communities like the Doma people from Kanyemba in Mbire and other border areas around the country are also affected by non-documentation and are at increased risks of statelessness. In these populations, the lack of documentation is passed from one generation to the next, limiting social mobility and economic opportunities for entire families. The closer to the border the community is, the further the Registrar General’s offices are, restricting access to documentation processes. Applicants are also often assumed to be migrants from neighbouring countries but are unable to access citizenship from either country.23 In border communities where people regularly cross borders to trade and access economic benefits from neighbouring countries, such as Botswana, many children born in neighbouring countries do not have 20 UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Submission by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees For the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights' Compilation Report Universal Periodic Review: Zimbabwe, (March 2016), available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57f650ee4.html. Currently, a study Is being pursued to provide a revised estimate of this figure. For more information please see: https://www.unhcr.org/2020-global-trends-annex-table-statelessness. 21 Ibid. p.50. 22 Amnesty International, We Are Like ‘Stray Animals’. Thousands Living on the Margin due to Statelessness in Zimbabwe, Amnesty International, (April 2021), pages 10 and 16, available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr46/3932/2021/en/. 23 Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, Report on National Inquiry on Access to Documentation in Zimbabwe, (April 2020), section XVI, available at: http://www.zhrc.org.zw/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/NI-Report-1.pdf.PAGE 4