Kurds from Syria comprise another sizable number of stateless persons in Denmark. According to Statistics Denmark, 365 stateless Kurds were registered as residents in Denmark in 2012, while, as illustrated in Figure 7, the registered number of stateless persons with Syrian origins has increased to 3,868 in 2017. Years back, the Danish Refugee Appeals Board decided to suspend any return of asylum-seekers from Syria.61 To overcome the various challenges outlined above, the statistical overview will be divided into two sections, each focusing on a group of stateless persons covered by the separate sources of data: 1 Stateless persons with residence rights62 2 Stateless persons seeking asylum or other residence permits63. 2.2.2.1 Stateless persons with residence rights The stateless population with residence rights in Denmark consisted of 4,558 persons by the third quarter of 2014. In addition, there were 61 persons registered as of having their nationality ‘not stated’ (uoplyst in Danish) forming a category which will further on be referred as ‘unknown nationality’64 in this study. In the following years, the stateless population with residence rights in Denmark has risen with more than 3,000 persons and consists by the third quarter of 2017 of 7,784 stateless persons – and in addition, 58 persons are registered as of “unknown nationality”. Figure 1: Population with residence rights registered as stateless or unknown nationality (2008 – 2017) Stateless Unknown nationality Total 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 3,487 3,467 3,222 3,074 3,220 3,764 4,558 5,771 7,013 7,784 101 101 100 100 105 103 61 67 67 58 3,588 3,568 3,322 3,174 3,325 3,867 4,619 5,838 7,070 7,842 Source: SD (Quarterly Population Statistics (FOLK1), 3rd quarter of every year, 2011-2017) 8,000 7,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 0 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 ■ Stateless ■ Unknown nationality 18 61 See an assessment of the police’s work on the return of rejected asylum-seekers in 2013 in the NUC, ‘Status på arbejdet med udsendelse af afviste asylansøgere i 2013’, 21 January 2014, p. 11, available at: https://bit.ly/3hFWd7a. 62 The main source of data is Statistics Denmark. 63 The main sources of data are the Danish Immigration Service and the National Police. 64 ‘Persons of unknown nationality’ is here defined as ‘Individuals with no identifiable nationality but who cannot obtain the registration as stateless either’. The Danish Immigration Service has informed during an interview in August 2012 that most of the registrations as ‘unknown nationality’ are relatively old. Today, the authorities seldom have doubts about a person’s nationality or statelessness. Mapping Statelessness in Denmark