Angelina Jolie is continuing her humanitarian work, raising awareness for support needed for those displaced by conflict in Sudan.
On Sept. 25, the Oscar winner, 49, shared a photo on Instagram from her visit with refugees in Adré, Chad, who have escaped Sudan amid an ongoing internal conflict in the African country that began in 2023.
Jolie urged the United Nations to “scale up the humanitarian response in Sudan and the region” as the U.N. held its 2024 General Assembly in New York City.
“The people I’ve listened to have endured unspeakable violence and have lost everything. The support from local responders here has been a lifeline for refugees who have otherwise been forgotten by the world,” Jolie said in a statement about her visit.
“It is incredible to see what they have been able to achieve and the lives they have managed to save, and all the time world leaders have stood silent or turned the other way.”
Jolie, who worked with the U.N.’s refugee agency in multiple positions between 2001 and 2022, wrote on Instagram that the conflict in Sudan has left more than 10 million displaced within the country, while more than 2 million others have fled to neighboring countries. As Jolie wrote, some 25.6 million people in the region “are facing acute hunger.”
Jolie commended the efforts of volunteer groups in Chad while emphasizing a greater need for international support in the region.
“The efforts of such groups have been incredible — they have done so much and with so little,” she added. “But they cannot respond to the vast scale of this crisis without proper international support and funding. I urge governments to help ensure that these volunteers receive the funding, protection and international solidarity that they need.”
On Instagram, Jolie wrote that she hopes the U.N.’s General Assembly “will result in decisions, not just conversation. Every hour matters as lives are at stake.”
The director-actress recently spoke to her experiences in humanitarian work and visits to war-torn areas of the world while talking about her new movie as a director, Without Blood, with The Hollywood Reporter. Without Blood follows a woman (played by Salma Hayek Pinault) who confronts a man who had a hand in her family’s murder during a past armed conflict.
“I’ve never had to experience war or lose somebody through armed conflict. But I have people I care very deeply about who have,” Jolie said in the interview. “I’ve seen people who have nothing give everything. And I’ve seen people who have everything do nothing.”
