Angelina Jolie took a break from life with her family to visit Ecuador’s northern border region, where many displaced Colombians have been forced to seek refuge.
Jolie was recently appointed to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and met with locals in a town located on the banks of the San Miguel River, along the border between Colombia and Ecuador.
Lago Agrio, a town in Ecuador’s northern Amazon region, hosts 50 families, 60 per cent of which are refugees from Colombia.
The majority of Colombian refugees in Ecuador were forced from their homelands by ongoing violence in Colombia’s southern and eastern departments.
During her work as an ambassador since 2001, Jolie has “conducted more than 40 field visits around the world” but will now focus on “large-scale crises resulting in the mass displacement of people,” UNHCR said in a statement.
Ecuador has the largest number of refugees of all Latin American nations — including some 56,000 from Colombia.