International humanitarian and Hollywood actress, Angelina Jolie, who is in Pakistan to support local flood-stricken communities, remarked that she has never seen anything like it in her life.
“I’ve never seen anything like this [devastation] … I am overwhelmed,” she remarked during her visit to the National Flood Response Coordination Center (NFRCC) in Islamabad on Wednesday, just a day after she visited the south of Sindh.
“I am absolutely with you in pushing the international community to do more,” the Hollywood star promised Pakistan.
She highlighted that “too many children” are malnourished and people are in dire need of aid.
“If enough aid doesn’t come, they won’t be here in the next few weeks,” Jolie warned.
She remarked that this is a real wake-up call to the world about present times and that climate change is real and is “very much here”.
Jolie visited people displaced by the floods with the international aid organization International Rescue Committee (IRC) earlier this week in an effort to raise awareness.
The special envoy to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees also visited Pakistan in 2005 and most recently in 2010 to highlight the needs of the flood victims.
“Many times, I came here because of the generosity that Pakistani people have shown to the people of Afghanistan over the years as a host country. Now this time we see the countries causing less damage to the environment are bearing the brunt of the disaster and the pain and the death,” she said.
Note that Pakistan contributes less than one percent of global carbon emissions but it is listed as one of the countries that are most vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis.
Meanwhile, Islamabad has urged the world’s more privileged countries to pay climate reparations.
