Originally published 2018-11-13.
In early November 2018, during a three-day visit to South Korea, Angelina Jolie used her role as Special Envoy of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to make a direct appeal to the UN Security Council: back a lasting ceasefire in Yemen and push the warring parties toward a negotiated settlement. Her statement, issued through UNHCR, came while she was meeting officials about the roughly 500 Yemenis who had sought asylum on South Korea's Jeju Island that year.
Her message was simple. The world, she said, had been "shamefully slow to act to end the crisis in Yemen," and the only real way to let refugees go home is to end the wars that drive them out. This article explains what she asked for, why she said it in Seoul, and what happened next.
What Jolie asked the Security Council to do
Jolie's appeal had three parts. First, the Security Council should support a durable ceasefire and a political settlement, working with the countries of the region. Second, all sides should respect international law on protecting civilians. Third, states everywhere should take their share of responsibility for people forced to flee, instead of leaving the burden to a few.
She warned that without a coordinated response grounded in law, the world would face more long-term instability and insecurity, and that no country would be untouched by it. It is worth being clear about what such a statement can and cannot do: an envoy's appeal adds pressure and attention, but it is not itself a ceasefire. Only the parties to the conflict, and the diplomats working with them, can agree one.
Why she was in South Korea
Jolie arrived in Seoul on 2 November 2018 and left on 4 November. Her visit was part of her regular UNHCR work and followed a trip to Korea by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, in late October.
The timing mattered. In May 2018 about 500 Yemenis had arrived on Jeju, a holiday island that allowed visa-free entry, and applied for asylum. Their arrival sparked a fierce national debate, protests and a wave of false rumours online. By mid-October the Justice Ministry had interviewed 484 of them and granted 362 a one-year humanitarian stay, which lets people remain and work but is not full refugee status.
On 4 November Jolie met Justice Minister Park Sang-ki at UNHCR's Seoul office, together with actor Jung Woo-sung, a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador who had visited the Yemenis on Jeju earlier in the year. She thanked Koreans for their support to UNHCR and spoke about the public's concerns, encouraging understanding of the human reality that makes people leave home.
Yemen's crisis in 2018
Yemen's civil war began in late 2014, when Houthi forces seized the capital, Sanaa. In March 2015 a Saudi-led coalition intervened to support the government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and the conflict turned into a grinding war with regional powers involved on both sides.
By 2018 the humanitarian picture was among the worst in the world. The country had suffered one of the largest cholera outbreaks in modern times, millions of people depended on food aid, and UN agencies were warning of famine. Reports at the time spoke of around 14 million people at risk of starvation. Jolie pointed out that more than two million Yemenis had been displaced, most of them inside their own country.
A common misconception is that most refugees head for rich countries. In fact the great majority of displaced Yemenis stayed within Yemen or nearby, and only a small number reached places as distant as Korea. That is part of why Jolie stressed shared responsibility: the costs fall hardest on the poorest places.
What happened after her appeal
Diplomacy did move a few weeks later. In December 2018, UN-led talks in Sweden produced the Stockholm Agreement, which included a ceasefire around the port city of Hodeidah and a plan for prisoner exchanges. Its implementation proved slow and partial, and fighting continued in many areas.
A broader break came in April 2022, when the UN brokered a two-month nationwide truce that was extended once before it formally expired. Even so, the war has never been fully settled. UN-linked estimates count well over 150,000 deaths from fighting and far more from hunger and disease, which shows how much was at stake when Jolie spoke in 2018.
Jolie's long work with UNHCR
Jolie began working with UNHCR in 2001 as a Goodwill Ambassador and became Special Envoy in 2012, a role in which she represented the High Commissioner on major displacement crises. Over two decades she carried out more than 60 field missions, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Syria's neighbours and Bangladesh.
In December 2022 she stepped down from the post, saying that after 20 years in the UN system she felt it was "time for me to work differently", engaging directly with refugees and local organisations. She has continued to speak about Yemen, including in 2022, when she urged the world not to forget the country while attention turned to Ukraine.
How to help people affected by the war in Yemen
- Give to established agencies with staff on the ground, such as UNHCR, the World Food Programme, UNICEF or experienced medical charities.
- Check facts before sharing stories about refugees; much of the anger in Korea in 2018 was fed by false online claims.
- Support local refugee services in your own country, which often need volunteers for language help and legal advice.
- Keep the issue visible by asking elected representatives about humanitarian funding and arms-export policy.
Sources: The Korea Times, 5 November 2018; Global Citizen: Angelina Jolie's refugee work in South Korea; Middle East Monitor, 5 November 2018; Wikipedia: Yemeni civil war (2014–present); Dhaka Tribune/AFP, December 2022.
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