Turning the spotlight. After it was revealed Thursday, Aug. 28, that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt had married in a small, private ceremony over the weekend, the A-list actress released a statement Friday, regarding a tragic new milestone in Syria.
“Three million refugees is not just another statistic,” Jolie, 39, a UNHCR special envoy, said of the displaced people who have fled Syria as a result of the civil war. “It is a searing indictment of our collective failure to end the war in Syria.”
Since last visiting Syrian refugees in a Lebanese camp in February 2014, Jolie has become a vocal critic of the world’s lack of leadership in ending the crisis. “International stability is steadily bleeding away in Syria. UN Security Council Resolutions are being ignored; war crimes are being committed on a daily basis; regional countries are staggering under the human burden; and Syrian refugees are dying in the Mediterranean sea, trying to reach Europe,” she said in her 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,” Jolie concluded. “The reputation and credibility of the international system is at stake with so many thousands of lives threatened in Syria.”
The Maleficent star’s statement is just one example of how she and her husband Pitt, 50, have used their star power over the years to turn the spotlight away from themselves and onto greater humanitarian issues. Jolie co-chaired the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict in June, where she was supported by Pitt.
The newlyweds, who tied the knot Saturday, Aug. 23, at their French estate, Chateau Miraval, are currently in Malta as they work on their next movie, By the Sea.