cases relating to refugee status determination are still pending. In the three cases relating to acquisition of citizenship, all the children were successfully registered and either acquired Albanian citizenship or are awaiting presidential confirmation of citizenship. In two cases, court procedures were required, and in one case, also DNA testing to prove parentage. At least three of the Albanian cases are of strategic relevance as they highlight gaps in current law and policy, for example, the requirement that parents have legal residence for children born on the territory to acquire Albanian citizenship. One of the cases has set an important precedent providing guidance on how to respond to cases of parents repatriated from a conflict zone with unregistered and undocumented children. Case Study - Rita A family of five – mother, father, and three children – of Kosovar origin approached TLAS for assistance to regularise their stay in Albania and acquire Albanian citizenship for their children, who were at risk of statelessness, including 16-year-old Rita. Rita’s father had been granted international protection, but her mother had irregular residence status. Rita and her siblings were also born in Albania, but her citizenship had been recorded as ‘unknown’ in her birth certificate and the names and dates of birth of both her mother and father on the family’s documents were recorded incorrectly. At the time of Rita’s birth, the law prevented her (and her siblings) from acquiring Albanian citizenship due to the irregular residence status of her parents. TLAS supported the parents to acquire original documents with the correct names and date of births and to meet with the Department of Asylum and Ministry of Internal Affairs. First an administrative and then a civil court procedure was then required to correct the documents, regularise the family’s residence status, and acquire and confirm citizenship for all family members. Rita and her siblings were all eventually registered as Albanian citizens, having lived their whole childhoods without any proof of citizenship. 4.2 Bulgaria Four cases were included in the research in Bulgaria. In two of them the outcome sought was acquisition of Bulgarian nationality, in one case for a stateless child born in Bulgaria to an Iraqi mother, and in another, for a Palestinian family with subsidiary protection. In another case, a Palestinian family was seeking protection either as refugees or stateless persons, with one child in the family also seeking Bulgarian nationality on grounds of being born stateless in the country. In the final case, the outcome sought was the correction of an imputed nationality on the birth certificate of a child born in Bulgaria to a Belgian and a Ghanaian parent. Each case has its own complexities and challenges, so methods and strategies to approach and resolve each were carefully considered in consultation with the families and adapted