Citizens should replace their personal documents by February 12 due to the change in the name of country to the Republic of North Macedonia. We are talking about an obligation assumed by the Prespa Agreement, according to which the state had a deadline of five years to replace all personal documents.
A huge number of citizens failed to obtain new travel documents by this date, and many Macedonian citizens who are abroad will be left with old travel documents and will not be able to return home, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Skopje said on Thursday.
“Some are trapped in their own country, and others will not be able to return. Such disorganization affects thousands of fellow citizens and leads to elementary violation of the rights of citizens who, for various reasons, need to leave the borders of the state. The procedures for extracting personal documents at this moment are long, chaotic and, in addition to the violation of dignity, cause real damage of a material and non-material nature,” said the Helsinki Committee.
