Jolie urges world to do more for Syrians

Along a dirt track on an unexpectedly cool and windy night on Jordan’s border with Syria, as shadows lengthened across the barren hills, UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie listened to the stories of men women and children who had fled Syria just hours before. She heard stories of bombs and pain and loss from people fleeing Homs, Dara’a and Qusair, three of the communities devastated by the Syrian conflict. Jolie encouraged the refugees to tell her, and through her the world, of their ordeal. “We can’t know your pain,” Jolie said at one point, speaking to families who had lost their loved ones. But she listened.
Jolie is in Jordan to mark World Refugee Day, which each year is commemorated on June 20. She and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, arrived in the country on Tuesday.
The purpose of her visit, said Jolie, is “to show support for Syria’s refugees, to call on the world to address their plight, and to better understand needs in Jordan and other countries in the region most directly affected by this devastating conflict.”
“The worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century is unfolding in the Middle East today,” said Jolie.
She urged the world to do much more to help the people of Syria. “The international response to this crisis falls short of the vast scale of this human tragedy,” she said. “Much more humanitarian aid is needed, and above all, a political settlement to this conflict must be found.”