Angelina Jolie tours the ruins of Mosul

  • 17/06/2018

UNHCR special envoy Angelina Jolie visited West Mosul on Saturday, less than a year after the city's liberation from Islamic State.

Jolie arrived in the city on the second day of the Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that comes at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

She walked among the city's destroyed buildings and rubble and spoke to displaced families to assess the needs of the returning population.

"This is the worst devastation I've seen in all my years with UNHCR," Jolie said, speaking in front of the ruins of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri.

According to UNHCR, the visit marked the Tomb Raider star's 61st mission - and her fifth visit to Iraq - with the UN Refugee Agency since 2001.

"These people have lost everything, and the trauma and the loss that they have suffered is unparalleled," said Jolie.

Angelina Jolie.
Angelina Jolie. Photo credit: Reuters

"They are here on their own with very little support, next to nothing, and they are rebuilding themselves with their bare hands, they are moving the rubble with their bare hands. There are bodies in this rubble that stay here, and you can smell the bodies, and some of them have family members that are here and they are unable to move them.

"And there is unexploded ordinance and yet they are so happy because the last Eid they were under occupation and suffering, and this Eid they have nothing, but they're free."

Jolie has been working with the UNHCR since 2001.

APTN / Newshub.