Angelina Jolie Visits Refugee Camp In Burkina Faso

Award-winning actress, Angelina Jolie, Special Envoy for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency visited a refugee camp in Burkina Faso for World Refugee Day, sheltering thousands of Malians who had fled jihadist violence in the region.

Jolie visited the camp at Goudebou, in the northeast of the landlocked West African country, as part of her role as an ambassador for the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees. Jolie arrived by helicopter accompanied by Burkina Faso’s Foreign Minister, Alpha Barry, for a ceremony to mark World Refugee Day.

“I have marked this day every year for 20 years with refugees in different countries,” she said after her visit. “I have never been as worried about the state of displacement globally as I am today,” she added.

The truth is we are not doing half of what we could and should to find solutions to enable refugees to return home or to support host countries like Burkina Faso, coping for years with a fraction of the humanitarian aid needed to provide basic support and protection.”

During an attack in March last year, 9,000 refugees who were sheltering there despite previous raids, had been forced to flee, causing its de facto closure.

Since December, the Burkina Faso authorities and the UNHCR have been relocating the refugees there, having stepped up security at the camp. There are now more soldiers posted at a new barracks and increased patrols.

Her visit aims to bring attention to the issue of displacement of people around the world. Speaking at the camp she quoted “Today 1 in 95 people are forcibly displaced.”

Jolie went on to state that the world needs to “wake up to the track we are on globally” where conflict and climate change could force “hundreds of millions” of people to leave their homes seeking refuge elsewhere.

UNHCR Spokeswoman, Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba said the situation with refugees in Burkina Faso has become much more “insecure,” while Fadimata Mohamed Ali Wallet, a refugee in the camp felt it wasn’t just Mali, where she fled from, that had terrorism issues forcing people to flee, but a problem for the whole of Africa.

Burkina Faso is acutely affected by the current 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. Funding for the UN Refugee Agency ‘s response in Burkina Faso remains critically low, with only 22 per cent of the funding required being met.