Hollywood star Ben Stiller urges US to aid Syrian refugees

Famed US actor Ben Stiller testified before Congress, calling on his country to keep up providing financial aids to the UN High Commission for Refugees for Syrian relief efforts.

MENA

2 min read

The New Arab

02 May, 2019

US actor Ben Stiller testified before Congress on Wednesday [Getty]

US actor Ben Stiller testified before Congress on Wednesday, calling on his country to keep up providing financial aids to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) for Syrian relief efforts.

"Eight years into the crisis, we must not look away. We cannot let Syrian families go deeper into destitution and cannot let their children be part of a lost generation," Stiller, who serves as the UNHCR's goodwill ambassador, told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The 53-year-old famed actor said the situation was so dire and people struggle to make ends meet.

He shared a story of a Syrian family with four children he met in neighbouring Lebanon, where they had lived for eight years.

When the mother became pregnant last year, she was advised by a friend to sell her baby for money, and the father tried to sell his kidney on Facebook.

"It sheds light on the family's desperate circumstances," Stiller said.

"I've tried to imagine how I would feel if caught in the middle of a conflict and unable to protect my children, if my son was at risk of forced recruitment or my daughter at risk of unimaginable violence," he said in Capitol Hill.

"For me, it's not something I want to think about."

According to the UNHCR, around 83% of Syrians live below the poverty line.

Stiller called for better conditions in Syrian before refugees are returned to their country.

Around half a million people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, which broke out in 2011, mostly by regime bombardment of civilian areas.

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