Country Position Paper: Statelessness in Syria the total number of stateless persons to be 160,000 since 2013. 67 Assessing the statelessness situation in Syria is incredibly difficult for both the Syrian authorities and UNHCR, due to access limitations to parts of the country, as well as regular population movements. It is also important to note that the figure of 160,000 does not include the estimated 438,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria. In the context of the Syrian conflict, it is important to recognise that statelessness can complicate the experience of refugees from Syria, who are a subset of the much larger number of people displaced. Statelessness may have various implications for protection as refugees and therefore must be identified. If not, key procedures, including Refugee Status Determination, birth registration for children born in exile and family reunification may be affected.68 Statelessness is also a relevant factor in considering and facilitating durable solutions: even if refugees become able to theoretically return to Syria in dignity and safety, statelessness could create significant barriers to their return.69 For refugees from Syria who are affected by statelessness, these barriers are relevant even beyond cessation of refugee status given that their statelessness would endure. The information below lists populations affected by statelessness in Syria (both stateless and at risk of statelessness). However, this is not an exhaustive list of people affected and should not be understood as such. For further information on populations affected by statelessness in Syria, please refer to the references quoted below and in the bibliography. 5.1 Stateless Kurds In 1962 the Syrian Government conducted a census under Decree No. 93 in the predominantly Kurdish region of al-Hassaka Governate, in North East Syria, which the Government used to strip an “estimated 120,000 people or about 20 percent of Syrian Kurds” of their citizenship.70 The census was conducted in the “context of pan-Arab nationalism,”71 “in the midst of political instability”72 and “on the pretext that many non-Syrian Kurds had crossed illegally from Turkey.”73 UNHCR, Global Report 2013 – Syrian Arab Republic, June 2014, at 2, available at: https://www.unhcr.org/publications/fundraising/539809f90/unhcr-global-report-2013-syrian-arab-republic.html; UNHCR, Time Series, available at: http://popstats.unhcr.org/en/time_series 68 See further Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion / European Network on Statelessness, From Syria to Europe: Experiences of Stateless Kurds and Palestinian Refugees from Syria Seeking Protection in Europe, January 2019, available at: http://www.institutesi.org/from_Syria_to_Europe.pdf and Thomas McGee, Statelessness Displaced: Update on Syria’s Stateless Kurds, Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2016/02, June 2016, available at: http://www.institutesi.org/WP2016_02.pdf 69 See more generally on the challenges faced by displaced populations as a result of the lack or loss of documentation, World Bank, Identification in the Context of Forced Displacement - Identification for Development (ID4D), June 2016, at 9, available at: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/375811469772770030/pdf/107276-WP-P156810-PUBLIC.pdf 70 Refugees International, Buried Alive: Stateless Kurds in Syria, January 2006, at 1, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/47a6eba80.html/. Also see: Zahra Albarazi, Regional Report on Citizenship The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Global Citizenship Observatory (GLOBALCIT) Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, November 2017, at 6, available at: http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/50046/RSCAS_GLOBALCIT_Comp_2017_03.pdf?sequence=1. See also, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Thematic Report on Conditions in Syria, 23 October 2017, at 3.5, available at: https://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/Documents/country-information-report-syria.pdf 71 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion / European Network on Statelessness, From Syria to Europe: Experiences of Stateless Kurds and Palestinian Refugees from Syria Seeking Protection in Europe, January 2019, at 9, available at: http://www.institutesi.org/from_Syria_to_Europe.pdf 72 Syrians for Truth and Justice, Syrian Citizenship Disappeared: How the 1962 Census destroyed stateless Kurds’ lives and identities, 15 September 2018, at 7, available at: https://www.stj-sy.com/en/view/745. This report gives a detailed background to the political situation in Syria prior to the census taking place in 1962. 73 Human Rights Watch, Group Denial: Repression of Kurdish Political and Cultural Rights in Syria, 26 November 2009, available at: https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/11/26/group-denial/repression-kurdish-political-and-cultural-rights-syria 67 13