Angelina Jolie lands in Aden in support of displaced Yemenis

Angelina Jolie landed in Aden, Yemen on Sunday to shed light on the plight of Yemenis after eight years of brutal conflict, the Hollywood superstar announced on her Instagram account on the same day.

"As we continue to watch the horrors unfolding in Ukraine, and call for an immediate end to the conflict and humanitarian access, I’m here in Yemen to support people who also desperately need peace," Jolie wrote on Instagram.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Angelina Jolie (@angelinajolie)

The Oscar winning actress is a Goodwill Ambassador for the UNHCR, the UN's Refugee agency. In this role, she has travelled to dozens of countries in crisis and visited numerous refugee camps to draw attention to the plight of refugees and internally displaced persons. 

Yemen’s civil war, which began in 2014, has spawned one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.

Over 20 million people are currently in need of humanitarian assistance and protection and 13 million are heading to starvation, the UN's World Food Programme warned last month.  

The war started when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, whose stronghold is in northern Yemen, captured the Yemeni capital Sana'a in September 2014 after a short military campaign.

Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen in 2015 at the head of a coalition composed mostly of Arab Gulf states seeking to counter Iran's growing influence in the region.

Adding to the violence of the Houthis, bloody airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition have displaced four million people.

Strikes against civilians have continued in recent months. In January 2022 alone, airstrikes killed 139 civilians and injured 287, according to the Yemen Data Project.

Adding to the ongoing violence, Yemeni civilians pay the price of growing international disinterest for their country's war, which remains one of the most difficult contexts for NGOs to work in.

On the same day that Jolie landed in Aden, two humanitarians working for international medical NGO Doctors Without Borders were kidnapped by gunmen in the east of the country.