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Dublin: 13 °C Thursday 18 April, 2024
Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie visits a camp for people displaced by the floods near Peshawar, Pakistan. Mohammad Sajjad/AP/Press Association Images
Pakistan

Angelina Jolie visits flood-struck Pakistan

Actress releases UN refugee agency appeal video for aid to Pakistan alongside visit with flood victims.

ANGELINA JOLIE HAS RELEASED an appeal video on behalf of the UN, urging people to donate funds to Pakistan.

Jolie has travelled to flood-afflicted regions today to help the UN to highlight “the need for continuing aid for the displaced”, according to the UNHCR.

Dressed in a sombre black hooded robe with a maroon trim, the actress met with Afghan refugees forced to flee their camp near the north-western town of Nowshera. She described the devastation as being “on a huge scale”:

It’s not just the floods – it’s three decades that the Pakistani people have hosted Afghan refugees. Their needs need to be addressed.

There are people displaced by the floods, all their homes washed away. many of them lost their children during the floods.

The Telegraph reports that Jolie personally donated $100,000 last month to the Pakistan relief efforts. The UN has so far received two-thirds of the $460m it called for in its Pakistan flood appeal.

Humanitarian ambassador

The actress has been involved with the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, since 2001 as a ‘goodwill ambassador’.

The organisation says that Jolie’s interest in humanitarian issues was “piqued” in 2000 when she visited Cambodia to film Tomb Raider, and has since travelled to over 20 countries with them, including Afghanistan and Haiti.

In the appeal, Jolie calls for aid to Pakistan to help alleviate “an economic and social catastrophe”:

Last month at the Salt premier in London, the actress spoke about the urgency of donating money to Pakistan: