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Access denied: Kosovo minorities struggle to attain citizenship (Prishtina Insight)

With the Kosovo government inadequately implementing the law on citizenship, minorities are left undocumented, the Ombudsperson Institution claims.

After a two-year endeavor, Svetlana Rakic, a Serbian citizen whose parents are from Kosovo, has finally given up on actively pursuing Kosovo citizenship.

Born in Kraljevo, Serbia, to parents who were born in Kosovo but left in the ‘80s, Rakic moved to Mitrovica in 2004. She’s been living and working in Kosovo since then, and eventually married a Kosovo citizen who she met at a conference.

A couple of years ago, while pregnant, she decided to comb through all legal pathways to attaining Kosovo citizenship. She contacted the Ministry of Internal Affairs and listed the criteria that she believed she met with relevant official documents attached.

“I was talking with someone in a very senior position at the Ministry of Internal Affairs [MIA] who was trying to help me attain the citizenship,” she recounted over coffee. She then pulled out a thick manila folder containing her own and her parents’ documents, as well as all records of her correspondence with the MIA.

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