Angelina Jolie has called on the international community to step up efforts to help refugees who have suffered “unspeakable brutality” in Syria and Iraq.
Jolie, 39, a special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and co-founder of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times after her trip to a refugee camp in Khanke, Iraq on Sunday.
The ‘Unbroken’ director said that though she has visited many refugee camps, she was speechless to witness “so much individual human misery” as she met the victims of ISIS.
“For many years I have visited camps, and every time, I sit in a tent and hear stories. I try my best to give support. To say something that will show solidarity and give some kind of thoughtful guidance. On this trip I was speechless.
“Nothing prepares you for the reality of so much individual human misery: for the stories of suffering and death, and the gaze of hungry, traumatised children,” Jolie wrote.
The actress said that more assistance was needed to help countries bordering Syria to help refugees.
Jolie said countries around the world should offer a safe home for those “most vulnerable,” such as those who have been tortured or raped.
“And above all, the international community as a whole has to find a path to a peace settlement. It is not enough to defend our values at home, in our newspapers and in our institutions. We also have to defend them in the refugee camps of the Middle East, and the ruined ghost towns of Syria,” she wrote.
