By Tim Saunders on
Angelina Jolie has made her third trip to Iraq to visit people displaced by the war.
The actress used her latest visit to the Middle East to visit the country, where she witnessed a settlement on the outskirts of Baghdad where 20,000 Iraqis live, unable to return to their homes because of violence.
“It is lacking in all of the basic things that you would need,” Jolie told CNN. “They just started to have clean water. They’re sleeping on dirt. They have built these areas out of brick by hand. They don’t have job opportunities.”
Jolie – a UN Ambassador for the UNHCR – met four families whose children could not go to school and could not afford to pay for medical treatment.
“This is a moment where things seem to be improving on the ground, but Iraqis need a lot of support and help to rebuild their lives.
“There are still three million people displaced, innocent families. We have still many young men and women from our country who are fighting every day, there are men and women from all countries who have lost their lives, and this is a time to try to make some positive change.
“The UNHCR has been doing everything it can. It’s been building houses. It’s having funding issues. It’s only half-funded this year. It takes six months to be able to build a house.
“So they’re not going to get enough money to be able to build all the houses that they want to build, to be able to facilitate anybody that does want to come home. They’ll be able to do something, but not as much as they could if they were given all the support.”
UNHCR has stated that 1.6 million Iraqis were displaced within the country by sectarian violence.
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