Local Editor
Hollywood actress and human rights campaigner Angelina Jolie made a brief visit to the Bekaa Valley in east Lebanon Friday to introduce her 9-year-old daughter to a Syrian refugee child.
A report by People Magazine said the one-day trip was for her daughter, Shiloh, to meet a 12-year-old Syrian refugee girl Jolie met during her last humanitarian trip to Lebanon in 2014.
“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,” Jolie told the magazine. “She had heard about Hala since my last visit to Lebanon, and has been wanting to meet her and her brothers and sisters.”
The actress, who is a Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, traveled after the visit to attend an Iftar meal in a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey.
“It was humbling and emotional to see Hala and her siblings again, and realize that their situation only becomes harder as time goes on, and aid for refugees is stretched beyond all limits,” Jolie said. “Their memories of Syriaare fading. They have stopped counting the days in displacement. Nothing is certain and they feel abandoned.”
The Iftar, which will take place in a refugee camp in the southern Turkish province of Mardin, will also be attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres, according to the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah.
Turkey has become the biggest host for Syrian refugees with an estimated 1.8 million people fleeing their war-town country to their northern neighbor since 2011.
Lebanon, with one-fifteenth Turkey’s population, comes second with an estimated 1.5 million refugees, of whom 1.17 million are registered with UNHCR. Lebanon has the highest per capita concentration of refugees of any country in recent history.
Jolie, 38, has visited a number of Middle Eastern countries over the last years as part of her humanitarian work. She made a three-day visit to Lebanon in February last year to highlight the plight of Syrian children.
Last year’s visit to Lebanon was Jolie’s third on behalf of the U.N. Her previous visit was in September 2012.
Source: The Daily Star
