“We should call this what it is: not just a ‘refugee crisis,’ but a crisis of global security and governance, that is manifesting itself in the worst refugee crisis ever recorded — and a time of mass displacement,” said Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie as she visited Syrian refugees in southeastern Turkey on Saturday.
In 2014, the numbers of people fleeing war and persecution reached 60 million, the highest level ever recorded and a number totaling roughly the population of the United Kingdom, according to a new UNHCR report.
Angelina Jolie, Special Envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, arrives for a visit at the Midyat refugee camp in Mardin, southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, Saturday, June 20, 2015. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)
“Our world has never been richer or healthier or more advanced. Yet never before have so many people been dispossessed and stripped of their basic human rights,” Jolie, who serves as UN special envoy, said, according to the release.
One in every 122 people in the world is now either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum, the UN Refugee Agency reported.
“People are running out of places to run to,” said the actress, who brought her 9-year-old daughter Shiloh along on the trip. She emphasized “the need to be open and tolerant to people … who may not be able to return home.”
In her role as UNHCR’s special envoy, Jolie read a prepared speech alongside United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees Antonio Guterres.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, talks with U.S. actress Angelina Jolie, left, Special Envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, second left, listens, during a visit at the Midyat refugee camp in Mardin, southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, Saturday, June 20, 2015. The woman at 2nd right is an interpreter. (Kayhan Ozer/Press Presidency Press Service via AP, Pool)
“This is a central problem. We cannot pick and choose which human rights violations we will and won’t tolerate,” Jolie Pitt said at the Midyat refugee camp.
Turkey now hosts the world’s largest numbers of refugees, approximately 1.6 million, many of whom are fleeing the five-year Syria civil war and the conflict in Iraq, according to the latest U.N. report.
Jolie brought daughter Shiloh first to Lebanon to spend time with Hala, an orphaned 12-year-old Syrian girl she met last year prior during another UNHCR trip, People reports.
Angelina Jolie, left, and her daughter Shiloh, second left, walk, in the city of Mardin, southeastern Turkey, Saturday, June 20, 2015.(AP Photo)
“Shiloh is very aware that I hold refugee families in high regard and has been asking to come on missions and meet them for many years,” she told People.
Upon leaving Hala and her five siblings “Shiloh asked many questions,” according to People. Jolie said seeing the refugees makes her daughter feel “sad” but she is “happy that she went” on the trip “and is looking forward to the next visit.”
“It is of course hard to explain all of the harsh realities of war and displacement,” said Jolie.
