Region | Iraq
Jolie arrives in Baghdad in effort to aid Iraqi refugees
Hollywood star and humanitarian activist Angelina Jolie appealed on Thursday for more international help for the millions of Iraqis displaced internally and abroad, UN officials said.
- Agencies
- Published: 19:30 February 7, 2008
- Image Credit: EPA
- Angelina Jolie has appealed for international help for the millions of displace Iraqi refugees.
Baghdad: Hollywood star and humanitarian activist Angelina Jolie on Thursday appealed for more international help for the millions of Iraqis displaced internally and abroad, UN officials said.
Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations HighCommissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), met officials from the United Nations, the US embassy and the US military in central Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
"She's here in her official capacity to talk to government officials, the military and the United Nations about Iraq's refugees and displaced persons," Staffan de Mistura, the U.N envoy to Baghdad said.
Jolie also visited Iraq last August, when she went to a makeshift camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) and metIraqi refugees in Damascus, capital of neighbouring Syria.
"There are over 2 million internally displaced people andthere doesn't seem to be a real coherent plan to help them,"Jolie told the CNN. "There's lots of goodwill and lots of discussion but there seems to be just a lot of talk at the moment and a lot of pieces need to be put together," she said.
Some 2.2 million Iraqis have fled sectarian fighting which killed tens of thousands after the bombing of a revered Shi'ite shrine in February 2006 and pushed Iraq to the brink of civil
war.
The Iraqi Red Crescent estimates that between 1.5 million and 2 million Iraqis fled to Syria, most of the others going to Jordan. Roughly the same number are displaced within Iraq.
Jolie's itinerary will include meetings with the top US commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki and Iraqi migration officials during her visit, according to the American Embassy.
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