Rediff.com« Back to articlePrint this article

When Asif Zardari called up Angelina Jolie

June 23, 2009 13:19 IST

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari made a 'thank you' call to Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie for donating a million dollars for the people displaced by anti-Taliban military operations in the country's northwest.

Zardari thanked Jolie and her companion Brad Pitt, who jointly run the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, during the phone call on Monday and also invited them to visit Pakistan, sources said.

The Hollywood power couple have been running the Jolie-Pitt Foundation to assist in humanitarian crises around the world.

Jolie, who has been a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commission on Refugees since 2001, donated a million dollars on World Refugee Day to aid displaced people in Pakistan.

Jolie has said she decided to provide aid to the displaced Pakistanis because the refugee crisis in the country was relatively new and the numbers of displaced persons had 'jumped so quickly'.

'I think in the last few weeks, there were about 100,000 displaced a day. There's over two million now. I think it's just there has been a giant appeal, a lot of funds have been sent in, a lot of aid has come to the people... But the numbers are so extraordinary and they're growing,' Jolie told CNN after making the donation.

© Copyright 2024 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent.