Visit by UN Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie keeps spotlight on Sierra Leone

Jolie meeting UNHCR Freetown staff

11 May 2005 – With the problems still faced by post-conflict Sierra Leone threatening to drop off the world's radar screen, an official of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has welcomed a three-day visit from the agency's high-profile Goodwill Ambassador, actress Angelina Jolie.

"Ms. Jolie's visit helps to highlight the need for continued international support to Sierra Leone as it copes with the aftershocks of the traumatic violence and social disintegration so recently suffered by the population as a whole," UNHCR's Acting Representative Andrew Mayne said.

She was scheduled to discuss the UN-backed Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which issued its report last October, with President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah later this week.

Ms. Jolie has met the UNHCR staff in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, including the field officers who hosted her on her very first UNHCR mission in 2001. Since then, she has travelled with UNHCR to help refugees in more than a dozen countries.