After
visiting a camp for Syrian refugees in southeastern Turkey on Saturday,
actress Angelina Jolie said the world is living through an era of mass
displacement.
Jolie,
who serves as a United Nations special envoy for refugees, was speaking
at a news conference in southeastern Turkey, home to Syrians and Iraqis
displaced by war, on World Refugee Day.
'Never before have so many people been dispossessed or stripped of their human rights,' Jolie said.
The U.N.
refugee agency UNHCR said in a report last week that there were now more
refugees than at any other time in history, with 59.5million people
displaced from their homes worldwide.
'There
is an explosion of human suffering and displacement on a level that has
never been seen before,' Jolie said, warning that Syrians and Iraqis
were running out of safe havens as neighboring states reached the limit
of their capacity.
'It is hard
to point to a single instance where, as an international community, we
are decisively addressing the root causes of refugee flows,' she said.
Jolie's
visit is the latest in a series of visits to Turkey as part of her work
as the UNHCR's special envoy to bring attention to the plight of
refugees.
As numbers increase, many countries are scrambling to find ways to close their doors to the new arrivals.
Hungary
recently announced plans to build a 13ft-high fence on the border with
Serbia to stop the flow of migrants from Asia and Africa, and
anti-immigrant sentiment has flared elsewhere in Europe.
Jolie spoke of the problem in general terms.
'People
are running out of places to run to,' she said, emphasizing 'the need
to be open and tolerant to people... who may not be able to return
home.'
Turkey now officially hosts the world's largest refugee community - about 1.6million, according the latest U.N. figures.
As the war in neighboring Syria rages into its fifth year, the flow shows no sign of abating.
'We
don't know how many more will be coming,' said Fuat Oktay, the chief of
Turkey's disaster and emergency agency. 'There's a huge risk that the
number might increase.'
Jolie
and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres met Turkish
President Tayyip Erdogan in the city of Midyat, some 30 miles from the
Syrian border. She also attended a Ramadan fast-breaking dinner at a
nearby camp and visited refugees.
This
was Jolie's third visit to Turkey since 2011, when the conflict in
Syria began. The war has displaced more than 3million refugees, or
almost a fifth of the pre-war population.
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