Angelina Jolie was mobbed by hundreds of star-struck migrants today when she visited a Greek port where thousands are stranded.
The actress, a special envoy for the United Nations refugee agency, proved a welcome distraction for the refugees, many of whom have endured torturous journeys into Europe after fleeing war in the Middle East.
At times, she struggled to move through the crowd, with many jostling for the best positions to take pictures and get a glimpse of the Hollywood star.
Jolie greeted children and asked the throng of reporters, cameramen and photographers to be more ‘thoughtful’ as she tried to speak with them.
She told one boy: ‘I’m here to learn and speak with you and the agencies and the government to learn what is happening, OK? Try to stay strong.’
According to the UNHCR, Jolie is visiting Greece ‘to reinforce efforts by UNHCR and the Greek government to step up the emergency response to the deteriorating humanitarian situation’.
About 4,000 people are waiting at the port of Piraeus in Athens either to head north to Greece’s closed border with Macedonia or for a place in rapidly filling official shelters.
Some 44,000 refugees and migrants, the last of the 143,000 who have entered Greece so far from Turkey in boats, are trapped in the country because of border closures on the Balkan route to Europe’s prosperous heartland. About 12,000 are in the greater Athens area.
Yesterday, Jolie turned up in a downpour at a Lebanese refugee camp yesterday to demand world leaders bring an end to the five-year-long conflict in Syria.
She branded delays over a peace deal were ‘tragic and shameful’.
Miss Jolie’s Hollywood grin and movie premiere-ready figure looked decidedly out of place in a camp which thousands of Syrian refugees are forced to call home.
The actress, 40, said: ‘We need governments around the world to show leadership: to analyse the situation and understand exactly what their country can do.’
She added that while much of the refugee debate was focused on Europe, ‘the greatest pressure is still being felt in the Middle East and North Africa’.
Some 80 per cent of the camp’s inhabitants are in debt, she said.
The one million registered refugees in Lebanon represent a quarter of the country’s population.
The war in Syria between Assad’s government, rebels and foreign jihadis has drawn in world powers and generated what the U.N. says is the largest humanitarian catastrophe in a generation.
Half of Syria’s prewar population of some 23 million has been displaced, with around 5 million having fled their homeland, mainly to neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq.
The international relief organization OXFAM warned Tuesday that Lebanese municipalities are running out of space to bury deceased refugees.
‘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 said.
After a tidal wave of refugees poured into Europe last year, some countries began erecting political and physical barriers to migration, which have left tens of thousands of refugees stuck in squalid conditions in the Balkans this spring.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
