UNDERSTANDING STATELESSNESS IN THE SYRIA REFUGEE CONTEXT  main stateless groups that were identified among the displaced over the course of this research reflect the main pre-conflict stateless populations in Syria. 5.1.1 STATELESS KURDS (AJANIB AND MAKTOUM) The stateless Kurds are a minority of Kurds in Syria who were denationalised in 1962 and their descendants.231 As part of the Jazira census232 that left them stateless, some Kurds were classified as Ajanib (rather than Syrian) and given a foreigners’ residency. Another group, which later came to be known as the Maktoum Kurds, were not registered in the census at all and were also not recognised as Syrian nationals. There is no exact data as to how many stateless Kurds lived in Syria prior to the conflict, although the number was estimated to be around 300,000.233 In 2011, Syria adopted Presidential Decree 49, offering the Ajanib Kurds the opportunity to naturalise.234 It is not clear how many persons benefited from this decree235 and the crisis and resultant displacement has made it difficult to map its impact on the number of stateless Kurds in Syria.236 Furthermore, there are no clear figures to indicate how many have fled to other countries due to the current conflict. Most stateless Kurds who have fled have gone to KRI due to territorial proximity and ethnopolitical affiliations. However, members of this group have also been displaced to other countries, for instance in the Bekaa region in Lebanon where one ITS is entirely populated by stateless Kurds.237 The majority of the stateless Kurds interviewed possess either a taaref document or – if Ajanib Kurds – a Bitaqa Ajnabi or ‘red card’. These are documents that are specific to those who are stateless or unregistered, distinct from documents possessed by Syrian nationals in general and thereby also from the documents usually encountered among the refugee population. If these different documents are not widely recognised, this may affect access to, for instance, civil registration procedures in the host country. Due to the discrimination this community faced for decades whilst living in Syria, Maktoum Kurds are likely to be more impoverished than the average Syrian.238 Access to education, for instance, was widely reported to be a problem for this community which is likely to have resulted in substantially lower education levels.239 This could make them more vulnerable in a displacement context in terms of their legal knowledge and empowerment, affecting their ability to receive and understand information about their situation and how to access certain rights, including documentation and civil registration. Awareness of their socio-economic context may help humanitarian assistance organisations to better tailor their programming for this group. Among the INGOs interviewed in Lebanon and KRI, there was general awareness of the potential presence of stateless Kurds among the refugees, but this knowledge was significantly lower among interviewees in other countries where this profile is encountered less often. INGOs in KRI 231 For more in depth information on this group see, Z. Albarazi, The Stateless Syrians, supra n41. 232 Ibid. 233 UNHCR, Global Trends 2011, 2012, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/statistics/country/4fd6f87f9/ unhcr-global-trends-2011.html. 234 Z. Albarazi, The Stateless Syrians, supra n42. See also T. McGee, Statelessness Displaced: Update on Syria’s Stateless Kurds, Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion Working Paper Series, 2016, available at: http://www.institutesi.org/WP2016_02.pdf; and UNHCR, Addressing Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa, supra n14, page 11. 235 UNHCR has estimated that 104,000 stateless persons had benefited from the Decree by mid 2013. See UNHCR, Global Report 2012: Syrian Arab Republic, 2013, available at: http://www.unhcr. org/51b1d63cb.html. 236 In the most recent UNHCR Global Trends report, published in June 2016, the estimate given for the number of stateless persons who remain in Syria is 160,000. UNHCR, Global Trends 2015, supra n40, Annex Table 7. 237 Approximately 30 families. 238 UNHCR, Global Trends 2015, supra n40. 239 For more information please see, Refugees International, Buried Alive: Stateless Kurds in Syria, supra n43. RESEARCH REPORT 45