Syria's Kurds register for citizenship after decades of marginalisation

In a packed hall in Qamishli's sports stadium in northeast Syria, Firas Ahmad is one of dozens of Kurds waiting to apply for citizenship after many in the minority were barred from doing so for decades.Since last week, "unregistered" Kurds, who have been stateless since a controversial 1962 census, have been flocking to registration centres across Syria to apply for citizenship, based on the interior ministry's instructions."A person without citizenship is considered as good as dead," Ahmad, 49, told AFP.