Angelina Jolie Visits Sudanese Refugees  3/1/07

Angelina Jolie has just completed a life-risking two-day trip to one of the darkest place on earth - the refugee camps in eastern Chad.

The actress-turned-humanitarian visited refugees from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, after making it through a Sahara Desert sandstorm.

In a statement released yesterday (28FEB07) by officials at the United Nation's High Commissioner For Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland, who helped organize Jolie's trip, the actress writes: "What is most upsetting is how long it is taking the international community to answer this crisis."

The Oscar-winning U.N. goodwill ambassador, who completed her trip yesterday, insists her trip to Chad offered her some hope.

She adds, "Today, many refugees seemed to have a new sense of hope and they want to see those guilty brought to trial."

Her trip to Darfur comes as international authorities named a Sudanese junior minister as a war criminal for reportedly recruiting Arabian soldiers to the feared janjaweed militia, who have raped, pillaged and killed over 200,000 Africans attempting to flee Sudan in the past four years.

Jolie writes, "In order to feel safe enough to return home, these people said they would need to know that the men who attacked them had been stripped of their weapons. This is a very important day for international justice."