Aynuddin Muradi has been a citizen of Kazakhstan for years, but he now faces deportation to his country of birth, Afghanistan.

Kazakh authorities in May stripped the 27-year-old of his citizenship on the grounds that he is not ethnic Kazakh, a claim he denies.

Muradi, who is appealing the decision, gave up his Afghan nationality when he gained Kazakh citizenship in 2019. Citizens of the Central Asian country are not allowed to hold dual nationality.

Now, Muradi -- whose child was born in Kazakhstan -- is effectively stateless.

"I will not give up on my country [Kazakhstan]," Muradi, who speaks fluent Kazakh, told RFE/RL's Kazakh Service. "I will not move to another country."

He is not alone. Dozens of ethnic Kazakhs from Afghanistan have been stripped of their citizenship by Astana in the past two years over doubts about their ethnicity.

Kazakhstan offers citizenship to ethnic Kazakhs who emigrate from abroad. Over 1 million ethnic Kazakhs from neighboring countries have moved to the oil-rich Central Asian country since the 1990s.

According to official figures, some 13,000 ethnic Kazakhs from Afghanistan have immigrated to Kazakhstan since the country gained independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Kazakh authorities say there are only several hundred ethnic Kazakhs remaining in Afghanistan. But ethnic Kazakhs in Afghanistan estimate the number is much higher.

Many members of the ethnic Kazakh community speak Dari or Uzbek and live among ethnic Uzbek communities in northern Afghanistan. Most of them reside in rural areas and are engaged in livestock farming.