Angelina Jolie has taken her eldest daughter Shiloh on a visit to a camp for Syrian refugees in southeastern Turkey.
The Hollywood star, who serves as a Special Envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees, spoke of an ‘explosion of human suffering and displacement’ following her visit on Saturday, to mark World Refugee Day.
Jolie was accompanied on the visit by her eldest biological child, nine-year-old Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, who has become well-known for her androgynous style choices.
The 40-year-old actress said the world is living through an era of mass displacement, at a news conference in southeastern Turkey.
‘Never before have so many people been dispossessed or stripped of their human rights,’ Jolie said.
The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said in a report last week that there were now more refugees than at any other time in history, with 59.5million people displaced from their homes worldwide.
There is an explosion of human suffering and displacement on a level that has never been seen before,’ Jolie said, warning that Syrians and Iraqis were running out of safe havens as neighbouring states reached the limit of their capacity.
‘It is hard to point to a single instance where, as an international community, we are decisively addressing the root causes of refugee flows,’ she said.
Jolie’s visit is the latest in a series of visits to Turkey as part of her work as the UNHCR’s special envoy to bring attention to the plight of refugees.
As numbers increase, many countries are scrambling to find ways to close their doors to the new arrivals.
Hungary recently announced plans to build a 13ft-high fence on the border with Serbia to stop the flow of migrants from Asia and Africa, and anti-immigrant sentiment has flared elsewhere in Europe.
Jolie spoke of the problem in general terms.
‘People are running out of places to run to,’ she said, emphasizing ‘the need to be open and tolerant to people… who may not be able to return home.’
Turkey now officially hosts the world’s largest refugee community – about 1.6million, according the latest U.N. figures.
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