Further, a stateless person qualifies as a refugee if he or she ‘owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing or disrupting public order in either a part or the whole of his or her country of origin or nationality is compelled to leave his or her place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge elsewhere’.132 Dependents of refugees are also protected in the Act with refugee status. Yet there remain challenges for access to refugee status for stateless persons. In part, this stems from the limited space in asylum applications to explain issues of statelessness or complex nationality issues. In part, it stems from applicants’ lack of awareness that deprivation of nationality is relevant in the context of refugee status. Applicants themselves are often not aware that they have in fact lost their nationality at all – particularly when it was the result of an amendment to the citizenship law that rendered them stateless unbeknownst to them. Thus Home Affairs officials need to be trained on nationality issues as they relate to refugee claims, so that they can assist clients with protection needs who may not understand how their experience relates to persecutory nationality law and implementation. Rejection of stateless refugees’ applications is also a result of the lack of awareness on behalf of refugee status determination officers (RSDOs), the Standing Committee of Refugee Affairs (SCRA) and the Refugee Appeal Board (RAB) of complex citizenship scenarios and country of origin information regarding the denial of nationality to specific groups or types of persons. LHR has seen stateless people approaching its offices in order to change the nationality listed on their asylum permits; for example, Palestinians born in Iraq whose nationality is recorded as ‘Iraqi’ or people of Burundian descent born in Tanzania whose nationality is recorded as ‘Tanzanian’ and who are in fact not recognised as nationals in either country. Finding a solution for clients: immigration status and citizenship himself or herself of the protection of that country or, not having a nationality and being outside of the country of his or her habitual residence is unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to return to it.131 There are scores of asylum-seekers in South Africa from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Zimbabwe who have had their nationality arbitrarily withdrawn – in clear violation of international law – as a result of their perceived race or nationality. This includes those of Eritrean ethnicity in Ethiopia who are presumed by Ethiopia to have acquired Eritrean nationality during that state’s succession. Some 15 000 Ethiopians expelled to Eritrea are not accepted as Eritrean nationals.133 Those of foreign descent who were born in or resided in Zimbabwe, but were stripped of their citizenship in 2001 for 131 Section 3(a) of the Refugees Act 132 Section 3(b) of the Refugees Act Promoting citizenship and preventing statelessness in South Africa: A practitioner’s guide 99