BEKAA VALLEY: Hollywood star and UN refugee agency envoy Angelina Jolie met Syrian refugee families living in squalid conditions in Lebanon, on the fifth anniversary of the Syrian war.
As per details, she said we should never forget that for all the focus on the refugee situation in Europe at this time, the greatest pressure is still being felt in the Middle East and North Africa, as it has for each of the last five years.
Jolie met Khulud, a 38-year-old mother of four now living in a tent in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, who was left paralysed three years ago by a sniper in Syria, according to the UN refugee agency.
Never once during our discussion did she ask for anything, did she stop smiling, or talk of anything other than her desire for her children to have the chance to go to school and have a better life,” the actress and activist said.
“When I saw her beautiful smile, and her dedicated husband and children looking after her, I was in awe of them. They are heroes to me. And I ask myself, what have we come to when such survivors are made to feel like beggars?”
Jolie later visited Beirut “where she met a group of women living in poor conditions, a damp collective shelter, that left them and their families exposed to sickness,” said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
The star, who has visited Syrian refugees in Lebanon before, appealed to governments around the world to step up their assistance to the nearly five million people who have been forced by war to flee their country.