Angelina Jolie calls for solidarity with refugees around the world
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (PANA) - The UN refugee agency's special envoy, Angelina Jolie, has called for solidarity with refugees around the world.
"We are not doing half of what we could and should be doing to find solutions for refugees to return home - or to support host countries like Burkina Faso," Jolie said on Sunday in the Burkinabe capital.
Jolie visited Burkina Faso on World Refugee Day to draw attention to the fastest-growing emergency in the world today, where displacement has doubled in the past year alone.
Indeed, according to the UNHCR, Burkina Faso is severely affected by the ongoing displacement crisis in the Sahel region of West and Central Africa.
More than 1.2 million people have been forced to flee their homes since 2019. Also, just a fortnight ago, the country experienced its deadliest attack in more than six years, when 138 people in the village of Solhan were executed when gunmen burst into the community in the middle of the night.
Funding for UNHCR's response in Burkina Faso remains "extremely low", with only 22% of the required funding, according to a UN agency statement.
The response is "erratic, uneven and geared towards the interests of powerful countries".
During her visit, the Special Envoy first met with displaced people in Kaya, in the interior of Burkina Faso, on Saturday. On Sunday she marked World Refugee Day with refugees from Mali in the Goudoubo camp.
Speaking at the camp, Jolie paid tribute to the strength and resilience of refugees, while warning of the dire consequences of the ninth consecutive year of rising numbers of displaced people worldwide.
"We need to wake up to the path we are on globally," the Special Envoy said, adding that "with so many conflicts raging and the very real possibility that climate change will force tens, if not hundreds of millions of people to leave their homes in the future, with no possibility of return," she was quoted in the statement as saying.
In the past 20 years, UNHCR has "never been more concerned" about the state of human displacement, she said.
The envoy blasted the way the international community tries to deal with conflict and insecurity, calling it "broken", "erratic", "unequal", "built on inherited privileges", "subject to the whim of political leaders" and "geared to the interests of powerful countries".
Jolie called on the international community to focus on finding solutions to reduce the number of refugees in the world.
-0- PANA TNDD/IS/BBA/VAO 21June2021
