Namibia has suddenly gained immense popularity in the United States thanks to the visit by Hollywood golden couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, the country’s ambassador to the US said on Thursday.
”Since the arrival of Angelina Jolie, her two adopted children and Brad Pitt in Namibia, the Namibian embassy in Washington DC has been inundated with calls from the US media and individuals,” Hopelong Ipinge said.
”[They are] inquiring about our country,” Ipinge said in a statement given to the media in Windhoek, the capital about 350km east of where Jolie and Pitt are staying on the desert country’s coast.
Jolie, who is eight months pregnant and is expected to give birth in Namibia, arrived with Pitt in the Southern African country in early April.
Their arrival sparked a media frenzy with both local and foreign journalists and paparazzi baying to get pictures and interview the glamorous couple.
Jolie and Pitt have been welcomed by the government, but a Namibian rights group and journalists have accused their bodyguards and police of heavy-handed tactics to keep the press at bay.
The Namibian government has vowed to protect Jolie and Pitt’s privacy, releasing a statement asking the press to leave them alone during their stay near the West Coast town of Swakopmund.
But their stay has done much to promote the arid south-west African country of two million people, famous for its diamond mines and spectacular desert scenery, Ipinge said.
”Some television stations in the US, including CNN even requested our tourism marketing videos because their American viewers requested to know more about Namibia,” Ipinge added.
Jolie had three choices of destinations to give birth to her first biological child, the statement of the Namibian ambassador said — France, the United States and Namibia.
”Her choice fell on Namibia because of privacy and that is what we need to secure at all costs,” Ipinge added.
”It will be an honour for Namibia to become the birthplace of her child,” she said.
Namibia over the weekend ordered three French paparazzi and a South African photographer to leave the country for trying to snap Jolie. – Sapa-AFP