Great actor and UN special envoy Angelina Jolie arrives in Kurdistan

AFP / RUDAW – 15.9.2012 – ERBIL-Hewlêr, Kurdistan region ‘Iraq’,— Hollywood star and UN special envoy Angelina Jolie will arrive in Duhok in Kurdistan on Saturday to be acquainted with the conditions of Syrian refugees there, a source from the foreign relations department in Kurdistan said on Friday.

“As part of her tour in a number of countries, the UN special envoy will be in Kurdistan on Saturday to visit Syrian Dumiz refugees camp in Duhok,” an official source told media. “Angelina Jolie will arrive in the Kurdistan Region at 5 o’clock on Saturday afternoon, and she will be the guest of the United Nations for two days,” said the source.

Jolie who was appointed in April as Special Envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), plans to visit refugee camps in Kurdistan Region’s Duhok province where hundreds of Kurdish families fleeing the violence in Syria are settled.

“She will visit the refugee camps of Kurdish families on Sunday,” the source told Rudaw.

Dumiz is the largest Syrian refugee camp in Duhok. Muhammad Abdullah Hamo, director of immigration in Duhok told Rudaw last month that his office had registered 13, 721 Syrian refugees. This trip to the Kurdistan Region comes following visits by Jolie to camps in Turkey’s Kurdish region and Jordan where she and UNHCR commissioner Antonio Guterres met with Syrian refugees.

Angelina Jolie Friday said she was concerned about the plight of Syrian refugees fleeing the unrest in their country. “I share everyone’s concerns about the winter approaching… with the violence showing no signs of easing up and the number (of refugees) growing,” Jolie was quoted as saying in Turkish capital Ankara. She met some of the 12,000 refugees at Oncupinar camp in Kilis city, and joined Syrian children who were singing in Turkish.

“With the violence in the conflict showing no signs of easing up and the numbers (of refugees) growing… it is a very large concern for all of us,” Jolie told the media in Ankara.