clear guidelines on the acquisition of citizenship in such cases,36 combined with the lack of documents of the mother or inability to ensure the mother’s participation in the procedure, results in many children spending their childhood without citizenship. All those who fail to submit a citizenship claim before the deadline of 18 years37 remain out of the reach of the provision of Article 13. In such cases, their only chance to acquire citizenship becomes again dependent on the acknowledgment of paternity. There is a possibility to initiate a court procedure for the determination of paternity, but the DNA analysis, which is often requested in these procedures, is very expensive (approximately €500). Destroyed, missing or unavailable registries 28. Another cause leading to a risk of statelessness in Serbia is that during the 1999 Kosovo conflict, the registry books for some places in Kosovo were destroyed, lost, or considered unavailable by the state bodies in Serbia.38 Seventeen years have passed since the registry books became unavailable, and yet they have still not been reconstructed. This is despite the Law on Registry Books requiring that destroyed books should be reconstructed ex officio and without delay and that citizens should only be obliged to provide information known to them.39 Notwithstanding this Law, citizens are forced to initiate the procedure for registration in reconstructed registry books of their own accord and to obtain and submit a long list of evidence. 29. The re-registration into citizenship registry books can be particularly difficult, requiring a citizenship certificate issued before 1999 or a birth certificate recording citizenship of Serbia. Failing this, information on citizenship must be found in the records of the Ministry of Interior. If this evidence is not available, no other documents will be accepted as suitable to establish previous registration in destroyed or unavailable registries. Applicants must initiate the procedure for determination of citizenship40, which requires even more evidence than the re-registration procedure, including parents’ documents in addition to the applicant’s. If the case involves an individual whose parents were also registered in the unavailable registry book, there is no possibility for success in the procedure for determination of citizenship. 30. The case of one of Praxis’ clients, Azemina, illustrates how difficult this procedure can be. Praxis assisted Azemina to initiate the procedure in February 2010, and she was finally re-registered into the registry books only six years later, in April 2016. The process involved a total of four appeals with four negative decisions, three appeals against the failure of the competent body to make a decision within the prescribed time limit, two complaints lodged with the Ombudsman, one complaint to the head of the city administration, and dozens of interventions. All these procedures lasted longer than six years. Before Azemina finally managed to be registered in the reconstructed registries, she had been denied access to basic human rights for more than 15 years. The problem of unavailable registries is not only a factor in increasing the risk of statelessness, but it also leads to the violation of a series of other human rights. 36 See paragraph 22. See paras 23-24. 38 The Kosovo conflict was an armed conflict (1998–99) between ethnic Albanians on the one hand and ethnic Serbs and the government of Yugoslavia (the rump of the former federal state, comprising the republics of Serbia and Montenegro) on the other. The conflict was resolved with the intervention of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). See https://www.britannica.com/event/Kosovo-conflict. 39 Article 43 of the Law on Registry Books, Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, nos. 20/2009 and 145/2014. 40 According to the Article 44 of the Law on Citizenship, for persons who acquired Serbian citizenship and whose fact of citizenship has not been entered in registry books, the Ministry of Interior shall determine citizenship of that person. 37 9