Riverbend
Feb 7th, 2008 by brangelina
Angelina Jolie has popped up in Iraq with her U.N.H.C.R. hat on.
This is some quotes from a CNN interview:
I in my research before I came here, I looked at the numbers and there are over 4 million people displaced and of the 2 million internally displaced it’s estimated that 58 percent are under 12 years old …
I felt I had to come here because it is very difficult to get answers about especially the internally displaced people. It’s as I said even U.N.H.C.R. who I traditionally work with—they are not able to be inside at the moment and so I was very frustrated and just getting a bunch of ideas and papers but not knowing what’s really going on, so so today I’m able to talk to all different people from our government and their government and really get some answers as to what is holding up the processes to really really assist these people properly …
I don’t see borders and I see lives and I see children and this is you know an environment where there is a war but there is a humanitarian crisis. And they have to be addressed simultaneously. We can’t wait for one to end to then finally take the time to address the other, it has to start right now.
Get the whole story:
CNN Video Interview
Read the transcript
If you want a great inside look at life as an Iraqi refugee, read Riverbend’s blog.
By the time we had reentered the Syrian border and were headed back to the cab ready to take us into Kameshli, I had resigned myself to the fact that we were refugees. I read about refugees on the Internet daily… in the newspapers… hear about them on TV. I hear about the estimated 1.5 million plus Iraqi refugees in Syria and shake my head, never really considering myself or my family as one of them. After all, refugees are people who sleep in tents and have no potable water or plumbing, right? Refugees carry their belongings in bags instead of suitcases and they don’t have cell phones or Internet access, right? Grasping my passport in my hand like my life depended on it, with two extra months in Syria stamped inside, it hit me how wrong I was. We were all refugees. I was suddenly a number. No matter how wealthy or educated or comfortable, a refugee is a refugee. A refugee is someone who isn’t really welcome in any country- including their own… especially their own.
Riverbend has got 5 years of heart wrenching stories about her life in Iraq. It’s well worth your time investment to dig through her archives to gain a good Iraqi perspective.
