CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE MEMBER STATES OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY 2020 2019 generally identified statelessness as a risk in many border areas, including among refugees (recognised or unrecognised), where lack of identity documents prevented birth registration over multiple generations.430 Even those refugees returning to Angola, as well as the internally displaced, have had difficulties getting recognition of their Angolan nationality in the absence of any existing documents.431 Refugees returning from DRC, and their children born in DRC, have in some cases found it difficult to have their nationality recognised.432 The internally displaced who never left the country have faced problems in establishing their identity.433 The Angolan Government established “11 Commitments for Children”, which include birth registration434, though there are still many difficulties in practice, including for returned refugees and their children. Some returnees remained without any documentation, most importantly the cedula pessoal, or “personal record”, equivalent to a birth certificate, that ensures access to schooling for children, and other rights, and is the basis for issue of a passport or identity card. Both Angola and Mozambique also host refugees, mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): just under 70,000 in Angola, and 25,000 in Mozambique.435 UNHCR has advocated for the naturalisation in Angola of a group of up to 15,000 refugees from Katanga Province of the DRC who have lived in Angola for more than three decades.436 In Mozambique, the 1991 Refugee Act provides for naturalisation of refugees on the same terms as other foreigners.437 There has been no effort to facilitate naturalisation for refugees in Mozambique in practice; however, children of refugees are eligible for Mozambican nationality based on birth in Mozambique, in line with the general nationality law (see above: Jus soli, double jus soli, and birth + residence).438 UNHCR has sought to promote legal solutions for children born in the DRC of Angolan parents, or of mixed Angolan and Congolese parentage who have been denied recognition as Congolese nationals despite nationality legislation granting citizenship of the DRC to a child with one Congolese parent. A verification exercise conducted by UNHCR with the Congolese and Angolan governments in 2014 recorded more than 56,000 Angolan former refugees in DRC, of whom eighteen thousand opted for local integration and the remainder to return to Angola. An Angolan government registration team sent to DRC to provide the former 430 Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration, Report of the Regional Consultative Meetings on Statelessness from the 3rd June to 26th July 2019. 431 Human Rights Watch, Struggling through Peace: Return and Resettlement in Angola, August 2003; Jerónimo, “Report on Citizenship Law: Angola”. 432 See Evaluation of UNHCR’s returnee reintegration programme in Angola, August 2008. 433 Human Rights Watch, “Struggling through Peace”; Jeff Crisp, José Riera, and Raquel Freitas, “Evaluation of UNHCR's Returnee Reintegration Programme in Angola” (UNHCR, August 2008). 434 Steve Felton, “With free birth registration, Angola promotes a child's right to legal identity”, UNICEF, 10 August 2010, available at http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/angola_55501.htmlhttp://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/angola_55501.html accessed 29 September 2011. 435 See UNHCR Operational Portal at https://data2.unhcr.org/en/countries/. 436 Jack Redden, Harriet Martin, “Thirty years on, UNHCR seeks full integration for Congolese refugees in Angola”, UNHCR, 21 March 2006; UNHCR, Regional Operations Profile for Southern Africa, 2011; quoted in Manby, “Statelessness in Southern Africa”. 437 Lei nº. 21/91 de 31 de Dezembro, art. 12. 438 UNHCR Regional Bureau for Southern Africa reports that the right under the law of children of refugees born in Mozambique to Mozambican nationality has been recognized by issue of national identity cards. UNHCR / December, 2020 99