Thursday, June 18, 2009

Jolie, Pitt give $1 million for Pakistan refugees



LOS ANGELES - Celebrity couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt donated $1 million to a U.N. refugee agency to help Pakistanis displaced by fighting between troops and Taliban militants, the agency said on Thursday.

Jolie, the star of 2008 movies "Changeling" and "Wanted," has visited Pakistan three times to witness United Nations relief operations since becoming a "goodwill ambassador" for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 2001.

The agency said it was grateful for the donation from Pitt and Jolie, and added that more than 2 million people in Pakistan had been uprooted this year as a result of the conflict in the northwest part of the country.

Most Pakistanis forced from their homes are living in government buildings or with host families, but 260,000 of them are in camps run by UNHCR, the agency said.

The Hollywood power couple, who gave the $1 million through their Jolie-Pitt Foundation, donated $2 million in September to help children in Ethiopia stricken by disease.

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