Um Anwar, a veiled stateless Arab woman, lost her husband when Saddam Hussein's forces invaded Iraq's tiny Arab neighbour Kuwait on August 2, 1990.
"He was a soldier in the Kuwaiti army. He was ill at home when he heard of the invasion. He got up, joined the fighting against Saddam's army and was killed on the first day of the invasion," she said.
Like tens of thousands of stateless Arabs known as "bidoon", which means "without" in Arabic, the middle-aged widow and her teenage son remain deprived of many basic rights including health services, education and even obtaining a driver's licence.
Um Anwar, or "mother of Anwar", who according to Bedouin traditions did not reveal her name, was among several bidoon speakers hosted by the Kuwait Human Rights Association to talk about their suffering on Saturday night at the first gathering of its kind held in the emirate.
More than 3,000 people, mostly bidoon, turned up for the event which was attended by a large number of lawmakers, former ministers and rights activists.
A statement issued by organisers said the "gathering is the start of a campaign to press for the basic rights of stateless Arabs" who have been living in the oil-rich Gulf emirate for decades.
The Kuwaiti government has accused most of the bidoon of concealing their origins in order to obtain Kuwaiti citizenship and the many benefits that go with it.
In 2000, authorities turned up the heat by giving bidoons an ultimatum to either reveal their identity and obtain a normal residence permit like other foreigners or be deprived of many essential rights.
Now, most of the bidoon, whose number ranges between 70,000 according to a government count and 100,000 according to rights activists, have no right to work, obtain a birth certificate for their babies or even get their marriage certificate attested.
"No nationality, no passport and no university education. No marriage contracts, no birth certificates and no driver's licence. There is no justice and humanity. There is no mercy," read a placard carried by the crowd.
The government said that the number of bidoon dwindled from 250,000 before the Iraqi occupation to 120,000 after the liberation in 1991 as most fled to Iraq. The number further dropped to about 70,000 after many took third-country citizenships.
But leading liberal human rights activist Ghanem al-Najjar told the gathering that he has an official document that shows that their number was 103,000 in June this year.
"The government must be held accountable for this human tragedy ... The problem is becoming more complex and we must apply pressure on the government to resolve it," Najjar said.
"Our agriculture authority now issues birth certificates for calves while stateless can't get one," he protested.
Former oil minister and member of the human rights association, Ali al-Baghli, said "it was we in Kuwait who invented the term bidoon ... The government complicated the problem when it stopped accepting fresh bidoon recruits in the army," he said.
Yussef al-Enezi, a man in his 30s, told the story of his father, now a retired serviceman who remains without nationality along with his wife and children.
"My father joined the army in the 1960s and served until he retired in 1993. He took part in several wars including the liberation war," of 1991.
"He was given many medals and awards, including one from the former emir. They wrote his nationality as a Kuwaiti from the desert," said Enezi, who described his father as a "living martyr."
"Now, my father runs away from police checkpoints for fear of arrest" because he does not carry identification papers, Enezi said.
The opposition-dominated parliament set up a special committee in July to try to find a solution to the problem but has so far failed to advance the case.
The government has granted citizenship to around 2,000 bidoon during the past six years but it insists that stateless who cannot prove that they or their forefathers lived in Kuwait in 1965 have no right to apply for nationality.
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