“We are here for a simple reason: This region is at the epicentre of a global crisis. Nearly 60 million people are displaced from their homes. That is one in every 122 people on our planet. Our world has never been richer or healthier or more advanced. Yet never before have so many people been dispossessed and stripped of their basic human rights. We should call this what it is: not just a “refugee crisis,” but a crisis of global security and governance, that is manifesting itself in the worst refugee crisis ever recorded—and a time of mass displacement.”
UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie Pitt commemorated World Refugee Day with Syrian refugees in Turkey, which has overtaken Pakistan to become the world’s largest refugee-hosting nation with more than 1.77 million in urban areas and government-run camps.
The Special Envoy and UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres also met Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to thank him and his people for the country’s generosity towards Syrian and Iraqis refugees and to discuss the challenges that Turkey and other host nations face, and their need for support.
In her capacity as co-founder of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, Jolie Pitt also raised her work on women’s rights and the global campaign against sexual violence in conflict. Later, while visiting the Midyat Refugee Camp in Mardin, south-eastern Turkey, she made a powerful World Refugee Day call for more action to prevent conflict and support refugees.