Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Several ethnic Somalis who came to Norway in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s lost their citizenships after suspected ID fraud.
The Directorate of Immigration (UDI) has over the last two years been
working with a group of over a hundred ethnic Somalis, and the agency
has concluded that several of them are not from Somalia, but from
Djibouti or some of the other neighboring countries, writes the
newspaper Klassekampen.
About half the people have Norwegian citizenship, whilst the rest have
other residence permits. Now, several of them have been told that their
permits are no longer valid.
The newspaper writes about Mahad Abib Mahamud, who came alone to Norway
at age 14 in year 2000. An anonymous tip led to that he has now been
given until 20 May to leave Norway. He believes that the anonymous tip
was sent by political opponents, and he calls for better source
criticism by UDI, who have not received a verification of Mahamoud’s
identity from the authorities in Djibouti.
"We have considered the information about his trip to Norway, his
language skills and had interviews with family and his ex-wife,
investigated his travels to Djibouti and his network of contacts there,
looked at the internet and telephone records and currency transfers,"
says department chief Georg Magne Rønnevig to the newspaper.
In Somalia there is a lack of public records of its citizens.
Therefore, Somali papers are not given any decisive weight by the
Immigration Appeals committee.