Angelina Jolie visits refugee camp in Jordan
Actress and UN special envoy Angelina Jolie called on world leaders to find a solution to the Syrian crisis during a visit to the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan on Friday.
Opened in 2014, Al-Azraq is the second largest Syrian refugee camp in the country with over 55,000 refugees. The camp is located 10 lkilometres east of Amman and 20 kilometres west of the town of Azraq in the Zarqa Governorate.
During her visit to the camp, the actress met with refugees, who spoke of the struggles they face in their daily lives. She also met with camp and UN officials who briefed her on the challenges faced by the aid agencies.
UN officials have repeatedly warned of the desperate conditions that the stranded refugees are living in.
On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch released new satellite images that show the dire situation for the Syrians stranded at the Jordanian border.
The refugees, most of them families, women and children, walked for days and now inhabit the area between two berms — technically part of Jordan —devoid of water, vegetation or shade, housed in tents woven from blankets and cloth.
The actress said that Jordan can not bear the responsibility for these refugees on its own.
Jordan currently hosts more than 1.4 million refugees with most of them living in urban areas and around 100,000 Syrians in the camps.
Jolie called on the international community to find a durable solution to the conflict.
The civil war in Syria, which began as a peaceful anti-government protest in 2011, has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced 11 million.