Angelina Jolie Makes Impassioned Plea to Help to Iraqi and Syrian Refugees

ABC/Lorenzo Bevilaqua(NEW YORK) — Angelina Jolie followed up her visit to Northern Iraq this past Sunday with an op-ed piece in The New York Times Tuesday that describes the devastation she witnessed in the refugee camps and pleas for help for the millions of displaced Syrians and Iraqis who are homeless.

“I have visited Iraq five times since 2007, and I have seen nothing like the suffering I’m witnessing now,” she writes. “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.”

The 39-year-old actor/director goes on to detail conversations she had with ISIS victims, and the helplessness she felt.

“What do you say to the 13-year-old girl who describes the warehouses where she and the others lived and would be pulled out, three at a time, to be raped by the men?” writes Jolie, who is also the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Jolie continues, “How can you speak when a woman your own age looks you in the eye and tells you that her whole family was killed in front of her, and that she now lives alone in a tent and has minimal food rations?”

She goes on to describe the dire situation, with neighboring countries running out of room for the refugees and her frustration over the international community’s inaction.  “What does it say about our commitment to human rights and accountability that we seem to tolerate crimes against humanity happening in Syria and Iraq on a daily basis?” Jolie asks.

“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 adds.

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