Kuwait’s stateless bedoun in limbo as hundreds lose bank accounts
Frontline worker Ahmad al-Enzi, a member of Kuwait’s stateless community, has spent the last 14 months lost in a bureaucratic maze after his bank account was suspended, freezing access to his salary and savings in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Nobody can live 14 months without their salary,” he said, speaking in his parent’s home with a metal sheet roof in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the wealthy oil producer. Enezi’s bank is demanding valid identification and Kuwaiti authorities are refusing to renew his residency card unless Enezi, 26, accepts to be identified as an Iraqi citizen.
Official government data says that at least 85,000 bedoun people live in Kuwait but activists say the number could be as high as 200,000. Many did not apply for citizenship in the 1960s because they were illiterate or could not produce documents, or did not know how important citizenship would become.
Source Credit: Reuters
