Hollywood star Angelina Jolie has called on Thailand to respect the human rights of Myanmar’s Rohinyga boat people, after Thai authorities pushed hundreds of them out to sea, a U.N. spokeswoman said Friday.
Jolie — who is deeply involved in the plight of refugees in her capacity as a United Nations goodwill ambassador — toured one of several camps in Thailand sheltering refugees from Myanmar’s military regime with her partner Brad Pitt on Wednesday.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Kitt McKinsey told AP Television News it was a coincidence that Jolie visited the border camp just as the plight of the Rohingyas was catching the world’s attention.
Some Rohingyas — who are denied citizenship in their native land — tried to land in Thailand recently after treacherous sea journeys only to be towed back to sea and cast adrift by the Thai navy. Indian officials rescued some but believe hundreds perished.
McKinsey said Jolie “was extremely touched by the plight of the Rohingya people,” and that she had expressed hope “that the human rights of the Rohingya people will be respected just as the human rights of everyone in the world should be respected.”
The Rohingya boat people represent just a part of Myanmar’s refugee exodus.
Hundreds of thousands of other ethnic minorities have fled by land across Myanmar’s eastern border to Thailand for decades, mostly civilians caught up in fighting between the military and ethnic insurgents.
Many flee to Thai refugee camps where they remain for years with little chance of resettlement in third countries.
On Wednesday, Jolie slapped a bright blue U.N. baseball cap on her head and toured the bamboo huts of the Ban Mai Nai Soi camp, home to 18,111 mainly ethnic Karenni refugees, just two miles (three kilometers) from the Myanmar border, near the northern Thai town of Mae Hong Son.
In a news release, the U.N. agency said Jolie asked a 26-year-old woman, Pan Sein, whether she was afraid when she made her perilous journey last year from her home village in Myanmar’s Kayah State.
“Yes, I was scared,” Pan Sein replied. “It was dangerous to flee, but even more dangerous to stay in my village.”
Jolie’s mission has taken her to more than 20 countries to comfort refugees and this was 33-year-old actress’s third such trip to Thailand.
“I was saddened to meet a 21-year-old woman who was born in a refugee camp, who has never even been out of the camp and is now raising her own child in a camp,” Jolie said.
Thailand recognizes most at the border camps as refugees with legitimate reason to fear returning to their homeland, but it does not accord that status to the Muslim Rohingyas, and seeks to send them away.
“Visiting Ban Mai Nai Soi and seeing how hospitable Thailand has been to 111,000 mostly Karen and Karenni refugees over the years makes me hope that Thailand will be just as generous to the Rohingya refugees who are now arriving on their shores,” Jolie said.
McKinsey said Jolie and Pitt arrived in Thailand by private jet and would be spending some “private time” together. She said she did not know when they would leave the country.