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WORLD / Middle East
Angelina Jolie visits refugees in Iraq
(AP)
Updated: 2007-08-29 11:21
GENEVA -- Angelina Jolie visited Iraq on Tuesday to meet with refugees
and US troops in the country.
Angelina Jolie talks to a wheelchair-bound woman, one of some 1,300
trapped at the makeshift Al Waleed refugee camp inside Iraq, unable to
leave the country for neighboring Syria August 28, 2007 in this photo
supplied by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. [Reuters]
Jolie, who is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, made the visit during a two-day trip to the
region, the UN refugee agency said Tuesday.
The statement said the 32-year-old actress met with displaced Iraqis in
neighboring Syria on Monday before crossing into Iraq for a few hours
Tuesday "to see firsthand the plight of hundreds of thousands of families
uprooted by the ongoing conflict."
"I have come to Syria and Iraq to help draw attention to this
humanitarian crisis and to urge governments to increase their support for
UNHCR and its partners," the Geneva-based agency quoted Jolie as saying.
Jolie traveled to the Al-Waleed refugee camp on the Iraqi side of the
border and spoke to some of the 1,200 Iraqis living there before visiting
a contingent of US troops in the area, the agency said.
UNHCR spokeswoman Astrid Van Genderen Stort said the trip had been
organized weeks in advance at Jolie's request.
Jolie has worked with UNHCR since early 2001. In May, a foundation set up
by Jolie and her partner, Brad Pitt, donated $1 million to help those
affected by the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region and neighboring Chad.
The UN refugee agency estimates that more than 4.2 million Iraqis have
left their homes — most of them since the 2003 US-led invasion to
topple Saddam Hussein. Of these, about 2 million have fled to neighboring
countries including Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon.
According to UNHCR, thousands of Iraqis continue to stream into Syria
every day, placing a heavy strain on the country's housing, health care
and education sectors.
Last month the agency and UNICEF launched an appeal for nearly $130
million to help provide education to displaced Iraqi children across the
Middle East. The US said Tuesday it would contribute $30 million to the
appeal.
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