Angelina Jolie Pitt Visits Greece, Comforts Refugee Children
There is no question about Angelina Jolie Pitt’s love and affection towards children, as she has six children herself, three of which are adopted. As she visits Greece this week, Angelina Jolie Pitt found herself comforting Syrian refugee children.
People reports Angelina arrived in Piraeus on Wednesday on behalf of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, just after her speech on the ongoing refugee issue.
“I am here to reinforce efforts by UNHCR and the Greek government to step up the emergency response to the deteriorating humanitarian situation. “I look forward to meeting authorities, partners and volunteers working on the ground to improve conditions and ensure the vulnerable are protected.”
UNHCR reports more than 1 million refugees from, Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq have landed in Greece since January 2015. This year, 448 people have gone missing during their travels to Europe. Last year, the record indicates nearly 4,000 people have drowned or gone missing.
“So many refugees are children. I’ve often heard them say that the most painful thing is not that they have lost their homes – it is that they have lost their friends.”
Angelina Jolie Pitt urged national governments to take charge of the Syrian and global refugee problem.
The Special Envoy spoke to the news conference on Wednesday as well, according to UNHCR.
“On this day, the fifth anniversary of the Syria conflict, that is where I had hoped to be – in Syria, helping UNHCR with returns and watching the families I have come to know be able to go home. It is tragic and shameful that we seem still so far from that point,”
Some great statements from Angelina’s speech, which is completely transcribed and recorded by Time, are as follows.
“Every Syrian refugee I have spoken to on this visit, without exception, talked of their desire to return home when the war is over and it is safe for them to do so – not with resignation, but with the light in their eyes of people dreaming of being reunited with the country that they love.”
Angelina also made the comment that 79 percent of all Syrian refugees are women and children.
“The number of refugees in Lebanon living below the minimum threshold for survival– unable to afford the food and shelter they need to stay alive – has doubled in the last two years,”
Angelina Jolie Pitt also mentions that the number of refugees right now are more than when we had our last world war.
“But with 60 million people displaced, as there are today, there is no way that the governments of the world– no matter how rich or willing they are – can prop up the UN enough to care for all these people permanently and expect that to address the problem.”
Angelina understands the fear of welcoming refugees to their country, afraid of the impact it could have on their lives and the security risk it could bring.
“It is not wrong to feel unsettled face by a crisis of such complexity and such magnitude. But we must not let fears get the better of us.”
Angelina revealed that she spent time with a mother who was paralyzed when she was shot in Syria. The lady lived in a small makeshift room with her family. But the lady didn’t stop smiling and all she cared about was that her children were getting an education and having a better life.
“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?”
[Photo by Milos Bicanski/ Getty Images]
