CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA \Y proposals to introduce a system of universal suffrage for the elections originally scheduled for 2020 were abandoned.*#*° a Somali This arrangement is criticised for granting “more citizenship rights and opportunities to born and bred in neighboring Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti or in any other country than an autochthonous Jareer/Bantu born and bred in Somalia’”.*5' In the absence of any census, the percentage of the population that is identified as of “Bantu” origin is highly contested.25* Many have been driven from their land and out of Somalia during the course of the civil war; many others are internally displaced. Since there is currently no national system nationality, it cannot be stated that members Somalia. However, members of civil registration or identity documents that confirm of minority groups are currently stateless, if resident in of minority groups face significant discrimination across all areas of life. Members of minority groups who are IDPs may face particular difficulties**>, including struggling to gain access to identity documents issued by some of the federal member states (for example, by Bosaso and other municipalities in Puntland); without such documents family members abroad. that members they cannot receive remittances from They also face difficulties in obtaining Somali passports.*5* of minority groups would face similar difficulties under any future It can be presumed citizenship law or identification regime in which citizenship continues to be defined primarily on ethnic grounds. To avoid the creation of statelessness, enrolment procedures would require detailed negotiation and careful design to provide for other forms of evidence than testimony from a (majority) clan leader that a person is entitled to be recognised as a Somali citizen; this would include evidence of birth and long-term residence in Somalia, especially over multiple generations. Appeal processes should be specified to contest an initial decision. Members of minority ethnic groups who were refugee camp not born or raised in Somalia — but, for example, in a in a neighbouring country — are at particular risk of statelessness if they cannot acquire the nationality of the country of refuge.?°5 A recent article concerning Somali Bantu deported from the US found that on arrival in Somalia “most were kidnapped and tortured for ransom by uniformed Somali police or armed groups that the Somali Government was unwilling or unable to control”, sometimes even on arrival at Mogadishu airport.2°6 250 “Staving off Violence around Somalia’s Elections” Africa Briefing No.163, International Crisis Group, 10 November 2020 https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/somalia/b163-staving-violence-around-somalias-elections. 251 Mohamed A. Eno, The Bantu Jareer Somalis: Unearthing Apartheid in the Horn of Africa (London: Adonis and Abbey Publishers Ltd, 2008), 200. “Jareer” is a term meaning hard hair, by contrast to “Jileec”, meaning soft hair. Both may have pejorative overtones. 22 Eno, 205—9; Daniel J. Van Lehman and Risa S. Proehl, ‘Population Estimates of Somali Bantu with East African Slave Ancestry’, Journal of Somali Studies 2, no. 1 &2 (2015): 47-66. 253 See generally, “Hostages of the Gatekeepers: Abuses against Internally Displaced in Mogadishu, Somalia”, Human Rights Watch, March 2013 https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/03/28/hostages-gatekeepers/abuses-aqainst-internally-displaced-mogadishu-somalia; “Voices Unheard: Participation of Internally Displaced Persons in Peace- and State-Building Processes in Somalia,” UNSOM, September 2019 https://unsom.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/voices_ unheard english final.pdf. 254 Interviews with various sources in Somalia, February — March 2021. 255 For the population of Somali descent in Tanzania, see Manby, 256 Daniel J. Van Lehman and Estelle M. McKee, ‘Citizenship and Statelessness in the East African Community’. ‘Removals to Somalia in Light of the Convention against Torture: Recent Evidence from Somali Bantu Deportees’, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 19, no. 3 (2019): 357-97. 58 UNHCR — December 2021