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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, according to a message by UNHCR.
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 31 per 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.