The African Union recognises 14 states in the East Africa region, of which five – Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and (from 2016) South Sudan, joined by Burundi (from the Central Africa region) – are also members of the East African Community (EAC), one of the regional economic communities also recognised by the AU. The EAC, re-launched in 2000, aims to create a similar zone of free movement as that which ECOWAS has established in West Africa; in 2016 Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda started issuing a common form biometric passport.
The East African region has some of the most severe challenges relating to statelessness in Africa. These include the consequences of the collapse of government in Somalia which has led to a large outflow of refugees, many of whom have been unable to integrate as nationals in neighbouring states despite long residence. The processes creating Eritrea and South Sudan, which have split from Ethiopia and Sudan, have also left large populations at risk of statelessness. Somaliland and Puntland also claim independence from Somalia, and have been issuing ID cards, but have not been recognised by the African Union.
The legal traditions of the region vary very widely, but, like other regions of Africa, East African countries increasingly permit dual nationality and respect equal rights of men and women; though discrimination on the basis of sex remains in place in several countries. A handful of laws, including in Uganda and Somalia, explicitly restrict access to citizenship on the basis of ethnicity; in others such discrimination is widespread in practice.
By KEVIN ROTICH For decades, the Shona community endured socio-economic challenges before President Uhuru Kenyatta recognised them as a Kenyan tribe on December 12, 2020. This can be traced to between the 1950s and 1960s when their ancestors first came…
By Brenda Mulinya NAIROBI – Members of the ethnic Shona community in Kenya are celebrating their new status as Kenyan citizens after decades of being stateless. Nazizi Dube gazes at what is now her most prized possession – a document…
By George Mikhail Egypt is seeking to join efforts with Sudan to confront the Muslim Brotherhood and extremist groups and ideas through several security and religious steps. In this context, the joint training course for imams of Egypt and Sudan…
By Mustafa Mahmoud On Mashujaa Day, Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i handed the president his Huduma card and announced that the process of integrating personal data for Huduma Namba was complete. Soon after, the CS officially launched the distribution of…
by SHABAN OMAR The burden of being non-citizens keeps on crushing the stateless communities in Kwale as they clamour for citizenship. In Kwale, most stateless people are found in Vanga, Shimoni, Gazi, Mangwei, among other areas of Msambweni and Lunga…
By Dr Adnan Abu Amer In a surprise move, the ruling military regime in Sudan announced its intention ten days ago to revoke the Sudanese citizenship of more than 3,500 people, of whom the majority are Palestinians. The former head…
By Tshegofatso Mothapo, Statelessness and Citizenship Review, 2(2), 331–337. This case note discusses Kennedy Gihana v Republic of Rwanda, Application No 017/2015 (‘Kennedy’). The case addressed whether the invalidation of the appellants’ passports was an arbitrary deprivation of nationality, rendering…
By Grace Mutung’u and Isaac Rutenberg (Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology (CIPIT) at Strathmore University) Statelessness and Citizenship Review, 2(2), 348–354 Introduction State issued digital identity is trending in sub-Saharan Africa, and Kenya has not been left behind.…
Sudan has revoked the citizenship of the former leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, along with more than 3,500 other foreign-born individuals. Such citizenships were granted to “influential personalities” by the regime of former President Omar Al-Bashir, local media have reported.…
By Motasem A Dalloul Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011, around 5.6 million Syrians have been forced to leave the country. A further 6.2 million have been displaced internally due to the war conditions and systematic ethnic…