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Stateless no more: Over 1,000 get UAE passports

ABU DHABI — Some 1,249 stateless citizens belonging to 296 families received their passports at the headquarters of the General Directorate for Naturalisation and Residency In Abu Dhabi yesterday.

The newly naturalised citizens hailed the President, His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, for granting them the UAE citizenship.

Earlier, a committee had been entrusted with studying the files of these stateless citizens to grant them citizenship. Brigadier Abdul Aziz Maktoum Al Sharifi, director of the Preventive security Department at the Ministry of Interior, is the chairman of the committee.

Meanwhile, talking to Khaleej Times, some of the newly naturalised citizens expressed their profound joy at receiving the passports.

Hassan Mohammed, 74, said he had applied for UAE citizenship in 1983, and had been living in the country for nearly 68 years now. ‘I have owned a house here since 1970 and regarded myself a UAE national even before I received the passport. But the dream has come true,’ he said.

Said 90-year-old Hassan Ali Hussein: ‘I have spent all my life in UAE. I am very happy to receive my passport and the passports of my family.’

Yousouf Zain Ali, another man who received his passport, said: ‘I was born in Al Makram area on the borders with Iran. My family moved to the UAE some 50 years ago when I was one-year-old. I have not left the UAE since then. I have been working in Ras Al Khaimah.’