Staff Reporter
THE Ministry of Home Affairs, Safety, and Security has confirmed that the elderly San couple recently reported in one of the daily newspapers to be stateless actually have birth certificates registered in their system.
The Ministry issued this statement in response to an article published early last month, which claimed that Mboma Nyumbu and his wife, Thitoka Ndumba, residents of Mutjiku Village in Kavango West, were living in poverty and lacked national identity documents, under the headline “Elderly San couple stateless and hungry at Mutjiku village in the Kavango West”.
The ministry’s investigation revealed that Nyumbu and Ndumba have birth certificates registered in their system, affirming their Namibian citizenship and disproving their statelessness as reported. The ministry concluded that the couple may have simply lost or misplaced their birth certificates, and all they need to do is obtain duplicate birth certificates to facilitate their application for identity cards.
“Furthermore, the newspaper article said that the couple cannot afford to travel to Rundu to visit the Ministry of Home Affairs. However, the Ministry will assist the couple in obtaining the necessary national documents, and the community of Divundu is therefore advised to visit the Divundu Sub-Regional Office, which is in their area,” the Ministry said.
The ministry further clarified the distinction of stateless status, emphasizing that even if a person has never possessed or applied for a birth certificate, such an individual would be categorized as ‘undocumented’ rather than ‘stateless.’ Stateless status pertains to someone who lacks citizenship in any country, which is the legal affiliation between a government and an individual.
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