UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie visits Iraq, calls for internatio..
Press Releases, 25 January 2015
Sunday 25 January Dohuk, Iraq - UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie is in Dohuk, Iraq, today visiting Syrian refugees and displaced Iraqi citizens in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to offer support to 3.3 million displaced people in the country and highlight their dire needs.
Since Ms Jolie's last visit to Iraq in September 2012, the scale and gravity of the humanitarian situation have increased dramatically, as the conflicts in Syria and Iraq intensify and become intertwined.
"It is shocking to see how the humanitarian situation in Iraq has deteriorated since my last visit. On top of large numbers of Syrian refugees, two million Iraqis were displaced by violence in 2014 alone. Many of these innocent people have been uprooted multiple times as they seek safety
amidst shifting frontlines."
While a massive aid response has been launched by UNHCR and partners, an estimated 330,000 people across the country still live in sub-standard shelters as they face their first winter away from home.
Today, Ms Jolie visited internally displaced Iraqis living in an informal settlement and a formal camp at Khanke, a 40 minute drive from Dohuk city. Together, the sites now accommodate more than 20,000 people from the Yazidi minority who fled Sinjar and surrounding areas in early August. Jolie
spoke to people with dramatic stories of escape, including people who managed to flee their imprisonment by walking through the night and hiding by day. She also met elderly women who were among the 196 Yazidis recently released by insurgents and now staying in the informal settlement at
Khanke.
The women recounted their ordeal of kidnap, detention, escape, and release. Jolie listened to the stories of extreme hardship and loss, including from people who still have sons, husbands and daughters detained, and others who had heard their daughters were moved to Syria. Others had lost all
contact with their loved ones and had no idea of their fate.
"Nothing can prepare you for the horrific stories of these survivors of kidnap, abuse and exploitation and to see how they cannot all get the urgent help they need and deserve," Jolie said. "The needs so dramatically outstrip the resources available in his vast crisis. Much more international
assistance is needed," the Special Envoy added.
Funding shortfalls have affected the scale and type of programmes to help survivors of violence and human rights abuses alongside the provision of shelter and other assistance. While much aid has been provided by the government, UNHCR and partners over the last six months -- including 34 new
camps built or under construction -- aid operations are hampered by lack of funding alongside security constraints. UNHCR, for example, has received only 53 per cent of its required USD 337 million for its response to internal displacement in Iraq during 2014 and has received the go-ahead to
proceed on projected funding for only 31per cent of its required USD 556 for 2015.
The Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) is hosting some 900,000 displaced people, placing an enormous strain on hosting communities, authorities and infrastructure. The huge influx of people from Mosul and Sinjar between June and August 2014 caused a three-month delay in the start of the school
year, as over 700 public schools in Dohuk were occupied by uprooted people. An estimated 20 per cent of the five million people in the KRI are either displaced Iraqis from elsewhere or refugees.
"I am very thankful to the Kurdish authorities for hosting so many displaced Iraqis alongside Syrian refugees at a time when they are facing so many challenges," the Special Envoy said.
This morning, Ms Jolie made a return visit to the sprawling Domiz camp which now hosts more than 50,000 Syrian refugees - more than a 5th of the entire population of Syrian refugees in Iraq, which currently stands at 233,000. She last visited Domiz, now the largest Syrian refugee camp in Iraq,
on 16 September 2012 when it hosted some 8,500 people.
As the conflict in Syria approaches its fifth year, Ms Jolie said: "The war in Syria is at the root of so many of the problems faced here in Iraq and across the region. There is an urgent need for international leadership to break the cycle of violence in Syria, and to find a way forward
towards a just and sustainable peace agreement."
Ms Jolie is on her 5th visit to Iraq and her 6th visit to Syrian refugees in the region.
"Too many innocent people are paying the price of the conflict in Syria and spread of extremism," Ms Jolie said wrapping up the first day of her two-day visit to Iraq today. "I express my deepest sympathy to the family of Haruna Yukawa the Japanese hostage reportedly murdered in Syria
yesterday, and to all the families and victims of these vile and extreme acts."
More than 3.8 million Syrians have fled to the neighbouring states of Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. Another 7.6 million Syrians are displaced inside the country.
There are some 3.1 million internally displaced Iraqis throughout the country, including a million who had been displaced between 2003 and 2013 and 2.1 million who were displaced in 2014. ENDS
Media Contacts:
In Iraq - Ariane Rummery +964 780 917 41 67 or +41 79 200 76 17
In Geneva - Francis Markus +41 79 301 1966
UNHCR Special Envoy Statement at Press Conference held at Khanke Camp for Internally Displaced People, Dohuk Governorate, Iraq, 25 January 2015.
I am shocked by what I have witnessed today.
This is my fifth visit to Iraq since 2007, and the suffering is worse than anything that I have seen in that time.
Since I was last here in Iraq, another 2 million people have been forced from their homes, mostly in the last six months - this time Iraqi citizens. The spill-over from the Syria conflict has been devastating.
The brutality of the conflict and speed and scale of the displacement has shocked the world. Help has come, but not nearly enough.
The Kurdistan region of Iraq is hosting almost a 5th of its population in displaced people - yet the people remain welcoming.
I have met women who were kidnapped and escaped and are now too traumatized to speak.
I have seen families with young children living without tents, with another 2 months of winter to go.
Children whose parents were murdered and are now here unaccompanied - a 19 year old working and being the sole provider for his 7 siblings.
I have met mothers whose children have been kidnapped by ISIS. As a parent, I couldn't imagine a greater horror. They are overwhelmed by thoughts of what is happening to their children (with the knowledge that there is abuse, slave labor, and rape.)
I ask people around the world to put themselves in the shoes of these innocent people in the tents and makeshift camps. The families I have met today who have been assaulted and abused. Their family members murdered, their homes destroyed.
Millions of people are internally displaced. And over five million children are in dire need of humanitarian assistance in Syria alone.
They are paying the price of our collective failure to end the conflict which has allowed extremists to take hold.
Today, as we approach the 5th year of the Syria conflict, a staggering 13 million people are displaced across Syria and Iraq. Border countries and their citizens are under immense strain.
The international community has to step up and do more.
UNHCR received only half the funds it needed in 2014 for programmes in Iraq and Syria and is extremely concerned at the slow pace of pledges for this year. Without more assistance, their situation is unsustainable.
I appeal to all parties to the conflict and the international community to do what they can to end the war in Syria - the root of so many of the problems we are facing including the renewed danger from terrorism.
We cannot place our hopes in simply managing this conflict, which is a threat to the entire region and therefore to international peace and security.
We have to ask: since we are unable to keep pace with the needs of refugees today, what will the situation be a year from now, two years from now, if there has been no progress?
We urgently need to find a path to a just and sustainable peace in Syria. It is past time for leaders on all sides to find common ground and a way to move forward.
It is not enough to defend our values at home. We have to defend them here, in the camps and in the informal settlements across the Middle East, and in the ruined towns of Iraq and Syria. We are being tested here, as an international community, and so far - for all the immense efforts and good
intentions - we are failing.
The people I met today need to know that we will be with them, giving them the support they need to survive for every day they remain displaced. But above all, they need to know that one day they will be able to go home. That there will be an end to all this suffering.