SARAJEVO -- Bosnia-Herzegovina has revoked the citizenships of 661 people since March 2006, officials say.
A commission in charge of revising naturalization decisions taken earlier said as many as 18,506 foreigners applied for the Bosnian citizenship from 1992 until 2006, most of them coming from Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Sudan, Algiers, Russia and Ukraine.
But the commission also announced in Sarajevo today it "could not decisively determine" how many were granted Bosnian passports.
It has also come to light that Bosnia's diplomatic offices abroad "did not keep records on citizenship applications," as required by law.
Out of the 661 of those who lost their Bosnian citizenship, 41 have filed appeals with local courts.
The media reported last year that a number of these cases involved Arabs who fought alongside Bosnia's Muslims, or Bosniaks, in the 1992-1995 war in that country, in what was known as the Mujaheddin units.