Statelessness in Southern Africa documentation to Mozambican migrants and their children in South Africa and other neighbouring countries.45 Malawi has restored citizenship to 85 persons during the period 2008 to 2011, but the process is expensive and difficult to access. An unknown number of diaspora returnees from Zimbabwe or elsewhere do not have citizenship documents.46 Tanzania provides a good example in relation to the grant of citizenship to refugees, especially refugees it has received from Rwanda and Burundi over the years, and has reaped the benefit in social peace. In 2007, Tanzania offered naturalisation to Burundian refugees resident in the country since 1972 and their descendants; of those eligible, 80%, or 172,000 people, expressed their desire to remain in Tanzania, and the remaining 20% were to receive assistance with repatriation from March 2008. There have been legal ambiguities and problems in practice with this process, and it is still not clear how effectively it will be implemented in practice, but it remains a positive effort to resolve such issues.47 In recent years, refugees and migrants have also reached southern Africa from further afield, including from the conflict in Somalia, whose status is particularly difficult because of the lack of any functioning state in that country. There have also been vastly increased unregulated flows of economic migrants from across the continent, especially to South Africa. The economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe since the turn of the millennium has led to large outflows of people to neighbouring countries. Though statistics are highly contested, according to some official estimates up to one million undocumented Zimbabwean migrants may be living in South Africa.48 Revisions to Zimbabwe’s citizenship laws and policies that have withdrawn citizenship from persons with the alleged possession of or right to claim citizenship of another country, mean that an unknown number of emigrants from Zimbabwe are stateless or at risk of statelessness.49 In 2010, the South African government responded positively to the situation of undocumented Zimbabweans by providing an opportunity for them to regularise their residence in South Africa (thus also providing a potential long term pathway to South African citizenship). Around 275,000 Zimbabweans had applied for residence by the 31 December 2010 deadline. Processing the applications depends on cooperation from the Zimbabwean authorities in providing passports or birth certificates to those applying for residence in South Africa, effectively excluding those who cannot obtain these documents from the Zimbabwean authorities. The Zimbabwe registrar-general did, however supply documentation to 72,000 Zimbabweans in South Africa.50 By October 2011, the Department of Home Affairs had issued permits to just over half of those who applied for them through this process.51 A moratorium on deportations was lifted. Proof of nationality and birth registration The systems for proof of nationality are in practice often as important as the provisions of the law on the qualifications in principle. If there are onerous requirements or costs attached to proof of nationality, or discrimination in practice means that proof is not obtainable, then the fact that a person actually fulfils the conditions laid down in law may be irrelevant. 45 UNHCR, “Fighting Statelessness: Findings In Mozambique”, 2011. A pilot project in South Africa is already under way, with other exercises planned in Zimbabwe and Malawi. 46 Information provided at UNHCR regional statelessness meeting, 1-3 November 2011. 47 Going Home or Staying Home? Ending Displacement for Burundian Refugees in Tanzania, Citizenship and Forced Migration in the Great Lakes Region Working Paper No. 1, November 2008, Centre for the Study of Forced Migration (Dar es Salaam), International Refugee Rights Initiative (Kampala), Social Science Research Council (New York). 48 Aurelia Segatti and Loren B. Landau (eds.), Contemporary Migration to South Africa: A Regional Development Issue, Agence Française de Développement and the World Bank, 2011, pp.146-149. 49 Similar policies have also been applied in Botswana. See Lawrence Seretse, “Thousands of Batswana become foreigners overnight”, Mmegi, 18 November 2011. 50 Information provided at UNHCR regional statelessness meeting, 1-3 November 2011. 51 “Speaking notes for briefing to the media by the head of the Zimbabwe Documentation Project, Jacob Mamabolo” http://www.info.gov.za/speech/DynamicAction?pageid=461&sid=19609&tid=36304 30 June 2011; “Deportations of Zimbabwean migrants set to resume”, IRIN, 7 October 2011. 11