Angelina Jolie calls for new bid to end Syria war

A handout picture made available by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) on February 24, 2014 shows US actress and UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie talking to a young Syrian refugee on February 23, 2014 at a refugee camp near the Lebanese village of Zahle in the Bekaa valley. Jolie was on a trhee-day visit to Lebanon. AFP PHOTO /HO /UNHCR/A.MCCONEELL

GENEVA – The Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie called Friday for a new bid to bring peace to Syria which she said was destabilizing the whole region and bringing misery to millions.

In an emotional plea, the UN goodwill ambassador for refugees, who married her long-term partner Brad Pitt in a secret ceremony at their chateau in the south of France last week, said, “Three million refugees is not just another statistic. It is a searing indictment of our collective failure to end the war in Syria.”

She said the worsening situation in the country, where civil war has been raging for three years, cannot be ignored with “Syrian refugees dying in the Mediterranean sea trying to reach Europe”.

“International stability is steadily bleeding away in Syria. UN Security Council Resolutions are being ignored; war crimes are being committed on a daily basis and regional countries are staggering under the human burden,” the actress said in a statement.

“We need to see a new attempt to resolve the conflict and greater efforts to support more than 13 million Syrians who are in desperate need.”

According to the UN, three million Syrians have fled their country and up to 11 million more within the country need help.

Nearly five million people live in regions that are difficult to reach because of the fighting, it says.

More than 240,000 of these people live in besieged towns or villages, and have been deprived of all aid, the UN claims.

It estimates that two-thirds of the country’s pre-war population of 22 million is in need of some kind of help.