Angelina Jolie Arrives in Bangladesh to Meet Rohingya Refugees

14:16 GMT, 4 February 2019

Angelina Jolie, a special envoy for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), has been sent to assess the humanitarian needs of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh; the star of the Tomb Raider series and other films has already begun her 3-day official visit to the country.

Sputnik

The Hollywood star is visiting Rohingya refugee camps in Teknaf, a peninsula in the Bangladesh district of Cox's Bazar.

"Angelina Jolie is on a three-day mission in Cox's Bazar to assess the humanitarian needs of the Rohingya refugees and some of the more critical challenges facing Bangladesh as a host country," a statement released from UNHCR today read.

Angelina Jolie proceeded directly to Rohingya refugee camps after arriving at the Cox's Bazar airport.

She first visited the Rohingya refugees at the Chakmarkul camp and later went to the Nayapara camp and the Leda camp in Taknaf.

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Amongst the refugees, Jolie met victims of sexual violence that reportedly took place in Myanmar's Rakhine state during the brutal military operations of August 2017.

The actress-envoy will meet Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Foreign Minister A. K. Abdul Momen to discuss how UNHCR can support the Bangladeshi government to work towards safe and sustainable solutions to the Rohingya refugee crisis.

Rohingya Muslims are originally from Myanmar, which they fled amid an ethno-religious conflict in 2017. Currently, over 1.1 million Rohingya reside in Cox's Bazar's refugee camps. The pre-crisis 2011 population of the region was slightly less than 2.3 million.