Bogota (Web Desk): Hollywood star Angelina Jolie has urged the international community to provide more support to three South American countries with the most migrants from crisis-hit Venezuela.
Jolie spoke in Colombia as a special envoy for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
She is on a two-day trip to meet Venezuelan migrants there and met with Colombian President Ivan Duque in Cartagena.
Four million Venezuelan refugees and migrants have fled economic and humanitarian crisis in their homeland and about 20,000 Venezuelan children are at risk of being without basic citizenship rights.
More than a million are living in Colombia, where the government and aid agencies have scrambled to provide housing, food and healthcare to an ever-growing influx of migrants arriving in already-poor and violent border regions.
I’m inspired yet again by Angelina Jolie’s humanitarian efforts. Yesterday she traveled to the Colombian border with Venezuela to raise awareness about the four million Venezuelans that have been forced to leave their country. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/NGlWisljoa
— Nina Garcia (@ninagarcia) June 8, 2019
The parents of Venezuelan children born abroad often struggle to register their baby’s birth, either because they do not have access to an ever-shrinking number of Venezuelan consulates or because they do not have migration papers.
“The president and I spoke of the risk of statelessness for more than 20,000 Venezuelan children, his commitment to always helping children,” Academy Award-winner Jolie, 44, said at a press conference.
“We agreed on the urgent need for the international community to give more support to Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, who are bearing the brunt of this crisis.”
Duque said he hoped the visit would alert the world to the seriousness of the migration crisis.
