registration).90 Even if current registrations are improving, archiving is virtually non-existent: in Boke, a regional capital in Lower Guinea, only a few years’ records are available at the mairie (amounting to just a handful of files); the (limited) records of births of more than about five years previously have been sent to the local museum rather than being kept accessible for those who may need them.91 In Senegal, while the national rate of registration was 69 percent in 2006, in Sedhiou, a department in Casamance, the rate was only 35 percent. The actual rate may be lower since the survey was only carried out in zones that were sufficiently secure to access.92 The long-running conflict in Casamance has left some civil registration records burnt, and many displaced without records; while audience foraines to enable late registration of births in remote locations are planned, they are not carried out for reasons of security.93 At one primary school in Ziguinchor only 269 of 690 children had a birth certificate: without a birth certificate they could not enter the exam to pass from primary to secondary school.94 At a school near the border with Guinea Bissau, not a single child arrived at the school with a birth certificate. In these circumstances, school principals will assist children to apply for late registration of birth; including getting sponsors from the community even for those who are born across the border. Many of these are Casamance refugees so are entitled to Senegalese nationality, but do not have Senegalese documentation. Without the birth certificate they are excluded from the possibility of progressing in their studies.95 However, a major effort to strengthen the system was launched in 2013, financed by a €5 million grant from the EU.96 Tribunals have been carrying out audiences foraines throughout the country to establish late birth registration: 263,796 jugements supplétifs were issued in 2013.97 Children of refugees are often most at risk of non-registration: although UNHCR will seek to ensure registration occurs, it depends on the collaboration of the national authorities, since a valid birth registration must be issued by the state itself, not a UN agency. In Guinea, formerly host to many thousands of Liberians and Sierra Leoneans, as well as Ivorians more recently, birth registration has been successfully organised in the refugee camps; however, those who have remained living in the sites of the former camps, but now with no ongoing refugee status or support from UNHCR, were reportedly virtually cut off from all contact with state authority, including registration of new births. Former refugees living in urban areas also faced difficulties in registering their children; or believed that they were not able to access it.98 At the same time, registration in a country of refuge may cause its own problems: Ivorian refugees interviewed in Conakry expressed reluctance to have their children registered in Guinea because they could have trouble returning to Côte d’Ivoire with a Guinean birth certificate, given the history of suspicion of “foreigners” in that country. A Guinean birth certificate includes a statement of the 90 Jaap van der Straaten, Towards Universal Birth Registration in Guinea: Analysis and recommendations for civil registration reform in Guinea for Government and UNICEF, Civil Registration Centre for Development—CRC4D, December 2013. 91 Interview, mairie, Boke, June 2014. 92 Interview UNICEF Ziguinchor office, May 2014. 93 Interviews Ziguinchor and Kolda, Casamance, May 2014. 94 Representative of IDPs, Ziguinchor, May 2014. 95 Interview school principal Casamance, near Guinea Bissau border, May 2014. 96 Viviane Diatta, « Modernisation de l’état-civil du Sénégal », Enquete, Dakar, jeudi 13 mars 2014. 97 Interview Bienvenu Moussa Habib Dione, Ministry of Justice, Dakar, May 2014. 98 Rapport de mission à Kissidougou du 2 au 6 juin 2013, Commission nationale pour l’intégration et le suivi des refugiés, Conakry, 2013. 34