Angelina Jolie joins Instagram to rally support for Afghan refugees
Angelina Jolie has joined Instagram to call others to action over the crisis in Afghanistan.
The Maleficent star, who serves as a special envoy to the United Nations refugee agency, used her first post on the platform to call attention to the growing crisis in Afghanistan.
Jolie shared a letter on Friday from an unidentified Afghan girl, who wrote of her fear in the face of the Taliban's takeover after U.S. forces pulled out of the country earlier this month.
"This is a letter I was sent from a teenage girl in Afghanistan," the 46-year-old penned in the caption. "Right now, the people of Afghanistan are losing their ability to communicate on social media and to express themselves freely. So I’ve come on Instagram to share their stories and the voices of those across the globe who are fighting for their basic human rights."
The actress has been working with the UN on issues affecting refugees since filming Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, which came out in 2001. In the post, Jolie describes being "on the border of Afghanistan" two weeks before the attacks on the World Trade Center that year. She wrote that it is "sickening" to watch the humanitarian crisis repeat itself "20 years later" and it is "a failure almost impossible to understand."
"Watching for decades how Afghan refugees - some of the most capable people in the world - are treated like a burden is also sickening," she continued. "Knowing that if they had the tools and respect, how much they would do for themselves. And meeting so many women and girls who not only wanted an education, but fought for it."
Jolie concluded by proclaiming she will "not turn away" and encouraged others to look for ways to help the humanitarian crisis.
Her post has accrued over three million likes and Jolie broke Instagram's record for the fastest user to achieve one million followers. She now has 7.5 million.
