In Iraq, Angelina Jolie calls for focus on conflict prevention

Hollywood star Angelina Jolie calls Sunday for a larger focus on conflict prevention, rather than responding to its repercussions, during a visit to Iraq with the UN refugee agency.

“I hope that we can find the strength to find a better way forward together, so that we move into a new era of preventing conflict and reducing instability, rather than simply struggling to deal with its consequences,” Jolie tells a news conference at the Domiz refugee camp in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region.

It is Jolie’s third visit to the camp as UNHCR special envoy, after previous visits in 2012 and 2016.

The Domiz camp opened in 2011 and is home to 40,000 Syrian refugees who fled the seven-year civil war across the border.

“When UNHCR’s Syria response was only 50 percent funded last year, and this year it is only 17% funded, there are terrible human consequences,” Jolie says. “We should be under no illusion about this.”

Late last month, the UN made an “urgent and critical” appeal for donations to its main budget for Syrian refugees after contributions pledged in April failed to trickle in.

— AFP