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UNHCR special envoy Angelina Jolie visits Syrian refugees in Lebanon

Xinhua, March 16, 2016 Adjust font size:

Visiting United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) special envoy Angelina Jolie hailed Tuesday the Lebanese people for the values and spirit it showed in hosting more than 1.1 million Syrian refugees.

"I want to thank the Lebanese people for helping to save the lives of over one million Syrians," Jolie said following an inspection tour of the Syrian refugee camps in the eastern Bekaa region, according to a statement by the UNHCR.

She said it is not easy for a country to take in refugees the equivalent of a quarter of its own population.

The number of refugees in Lebanon living below the minimum threshold for survival -- unable to afford the food and shelter they need to stay alive -- has doubled in the last two years, in a country where 79 percent of all Syrian refugees are women and children, Jolie said.

"We have to focus on the absolute root causes, and that takes a certain amount of courage and leadership," she said.

According to the UNHCR, Lebanon hosts more than 1.1 million Syrians who fled their war-torn country since the beginning of the uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad in March 2011. Endit