(BEIRUT, LEBANON) — Hollywood actress and human rights activist Angelina Jolie made an unannounced trip to Lebanon on Friday to introduce her 9-year-old daughter Shiloh to Syrian refugees in the Bekaa Valley.
People Magazine reports that the one-day trip was meant for her daughter to meet a 12-year-old Syrian girl named Hala, who Jolie met during her last trip to Lebanon in 2014.
“Shiloh is very aware that I hold refugee families in high regard and has been asking to come on missions and meet them for many years,” Jolie told People Magazine. “She had heard about Hala since my last visit to Lebanon, and has been wanting to meet her and her brothers and sisters.”
Hala has no parents and lives with her five brothers and sisters in a settlement near Zahle. Over 50 percent of the 1.2 million refugees in Lebanon are children, according to the UN.
“It was wonderful that they were able to meet, play together, and make friends. So many refugees are children,” Jolie said. “I’ve often heard them say that the most painful thing is not that they have lost their homes – it is that they have lost their friends.”
Jolie said it was “humbling” to see Hala and her siblings again, and have the chance to introduce her daughter to a refugee family.
“Upon leaving the family, Shiloh asked many questions,” Jolie added. “It is of course hard to explain all of the harsh realities of war and displacement. She said she felt sad, but was happy that she went and is looking forward to the next visit.”
After leaving Lebanon, Jolie traveled to Turkey to attend an Iftar dinner in a Syrian refugee camp near the southern Turkish province of Mardin.
Jolie, 38, previously visited Lebanon in February 2014 to highlight the plight of Syrian children.