CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE MEMBER STATES OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY 2020 Internally displaced persons (IDPs) The largest population of people displaced inside the borders of their own country within the SADC states are found in DRC, where, as of early 2020, there were an estimated five million IDPs – in addition to almost one million refugees.400 There were also over 180,000 IDPs in Mozambique and 270,000 in Zimbabwe.401 Among the many difficulties of those affected by conflict, whether or not they cross an international border, are the loss or destruction both of personal documents and of government archives recording their issue. Those who do not cross an international border may in some ways be even worse affected by lack of documents, since they are much less likely to be registered by an international or national agency at the time of displacement, but equally likely to be affected by loss or destruction of their existing documents and the dispersal of community leaders who could vouch for a person’s identity. Displaced children separated from their parents are the most vulnerable of all. Those internally displaced by the Angolan civil war who never left the country have faced problems similar to those of refugees in re-establishing their identity.402 Similarly, there are still people affected by the Gukurahundi conflict of the early 1980s in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe, who are unable to obtain identity documents because their family members were killed and documents destroyed at that time.403 Natural disasters may also cause problems. The hearings conducted by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission during 2019 found that large numbers of citizens were left without any form of identification after tropical Cyclone Idai ravaged eastern parts of Manicaland province earlier that year.404 Without these documents statelessness becomes a risk, if records are not sufficient to re-establish identity, and additional requirements for proof of identity are imposed upon those whose nationality is caused into question. 400 The UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported more than 600,000 refugees from DRC in neighbouring countries in 1996, reducing to 200,000 by 2005 (2005 UNHCR Statistical Yearbook Country Data Sheet: Dem. Rep. of the Congo); as of December 2019, UNHCR reported 902,816 refugees from DRC in other African states, and five million internally displaced: “UNHCR DR Congo Factsheet - January 2020”, 30 January 2020 https://data2.unhcr.org/fr/documents/details/73669. See also UNHCR, Refugees and asylum seekers from DRC, DRC Situation Update, 31 March 2020 https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/drc. 401 UNHCR, Southern Africa Region Fact Sheet, March 2020 http://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/UNHCR%20RBSA%20fact%20sheetMarch%202020_0.pdf. 402 Human Rights Watch, “Struggling through Peace: Return and Resettlement in Angola”, August 2003. 403 Brenna Matendere and Jairos Saunyama “Lack of IDs a human right violation”, Newsday (Harare), 11 September 2019; Nqobile Tshili, “Human Rights Commission concludes Mat’land documents hearing”, The Chronicle (Harare), 26 October 2019; Report on The Gwanda Community Youth Development Trust Petition on Access to Primary Documents, Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security, Zimbabwe, 27 August 2019. 404 “Cyclone Idai, large number of citizens lost documentation – ZHRC”, NewZimbabwe.com, 9 October 2019; Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, “Access to Documentation in Zimbabwe”, 41. UNHCR / December, 2020 95