U.S. actress and special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Angelina Jolie (C), visits the temporary refugee facilities at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Greece, March 16, 2016. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)
Hollywood actress and special envoy to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Angelina Jolie Pitt visited Greece on Wednesday to highlight the plight of thousands of refugees and migrants stranded in the country over the past month.
The UNHCR goodwill ambassador held a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras at his office after visiting camps in Athens and Piraeus port, where about 4,000 people are temporarily sheltered.
Around 44,000 people have been trapped in Greece after Austria and Balkan states sealed off the borders along the Balkan route to central Europe, according to the latest estimates by the Greek government, testing the debt-laden country's limits.
At the Idomeni border crossing between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), a sprawling makeshift camp hosts some 14,000 people suffering from food and medicines shortages.
Refugees are staying near the border in the hopes it may open soon, which would allow them to continue their journey to central and northern Europe.
"The situation is very difficult, in particular in the northern borders. I know that you visited the reception centers at Piraeus, where conditions are better," Tsipras said when welcoming Jolie Pitt, according to the national news agency AMNA.
"I am here to reinforce efforts by UNHCR and the Greek government to step up the emergency response to the deteriorating humanitarian situation," she said, according to a UNHCR press release.
The actress reiterated UNHCR's support to Greece in the expansion and coordination of protection and assistance to refugees, strengthening registration and asylum procedures, as well as upholding international protection and refugee law standards and the implementation of the EU relocation program, the press statement read.
Jolie Pitt also expressed her appreciation for the support and solidarity Greece had shown the hundreds of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers who had landed on its shores, according to the press release.
Although it was her first visit to Greece as a UNHCR envoy, she was not the first Hollywood celebrity to visit the country to highlight the refugee crisis.
Actress Susan Sarandon was nominated in February for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for aiding refugees and in recognition of her attempt to raise public awareness during her visit to Lesvos island in late 2015.
Jolie Pitt's visit came on the eve of a critical new EU-Turkey summit in Brussels on deeper cross-border cooperation on the handling of the refugee crisis.
