Angelina Jolie Brings Daughters Shiloh & Zahara To Syrian Refugee Camp

Angelina Jolie brought her two young daughters, 11-year-old Shiloh and 13-year-old Zahara, to a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan on Sunday during a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees trip.

“My daughters Zahara and Shiloh asked to come with me today,” Jolie told UNHCR. “They’ve spent time today speaking and playing with children their own age who have been forced from their homes, whose family members have been killed or have disappeared, and who are struggling with trauma and illness, but who at the end of the day are just children, with the same hopes and rights as children in any other nation.”

Jolie serves as the UNCHR’s Special Envoy and is known for her work as a peace activist. She has visited Jordan five times since the beginning of the Syrian refugee crisis, during which six million Syrians have been displaced within the nation and nearly six million more have fled to neighboring countries, according to UNCHR.

Shiloh and Zahara met young Syrian girls at the refugee camp who explained to them that education gives them hope. The girls they met all attend an after-school UNHCR learning program.

During Jolie’s visit to the refugee camp, she advocated for a viable political settlement to allow refugees to return to their homes and put a stop to human suffering.

“For such an educated, capable people, it is soul-destroying to be made this dependent,” Jolie said during a press conference.”So I would urge the Security Council members to come to the region, to visit the camps and the urban refugees, and find a way to finally bring the full weight of the UN and international community to bear to solve this conflict. We should never forget that the war began with demands by Syrians for greater human rights. Peace in their country has to be built on that.”