Angelina Jolie visits Mosul, urges support for rebuilding
DOMIZ CAMP: UN refugee agency special envoy Angelina Jolie on Sunday visited a camp for Syrian refugees in northern Iraq to drum up support for those displaced by years of civil war.
The actress toured the Domiz camp, home to 33,000 refugees from Syria’s seven-year conflict.
A day earlier she visited Mosul, which Iraqi forces took back last year from the Islamic State . The militants occupied the city for three years and turned it into a stronghold of a “caliphate” in a military campaign that saw 900,000 residents flee.
Normality has returned to many parts of Mosul, with displaced residents leaving camps nearby to return home.
But the Old City in West Mosul was largely destroyed during a campaign by a 100,000-strong alliance of Iraqi government units, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shia militias backed by air support from a US-led coalition.
“This is the worst devastation I have seen in all my years working with UNHCR. People here have lost everything,” Jolie said.
“They are destitute. They have no medicine for their children, and many have no running water or basic services,” she said.
“I hope there will be a continued commitment to rebuilding and stabilising the whole of the city. And I call on the international community not to forget Mosul.”