“Lost” Surinamese nationals to be given Dutch residency rights

Around 800 people who lost their claim to Dutch citizenship when Suriname declared independence in 1975 are to be given full residency rights in the Netherlands at last.

On Tuesday, a majority of MPs voted in favour of a motion to grant them full residency and junior justice minister Eric van der Berg said on Thursday that this is now being organised. The group can easily be differentiated from other claimants to prevent any precedent, he said.

The ruling will come into effect on January 1 and will run until July 1 next year.

People born in Suriname before independence were given five years to secure their Dutch nationality, but hundreds who failed or were unable to do so while living in the Netherlands became undocumented citizens.

Some of the group were infants at the time and are now in their late forties, having spent their whole lives with no right to work, travel out of the country or obtain health cover. The oldest members are thought to be in their 80s.

The actual task of issuing them with residency documents will fall to the new minister for asylum and migration, Marjolein Faber of the far-right PVV party. The PVV was one of a few parties not to support the motion.