UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett says nothing prepared her for “the extent and depth of suffering” she saw when she visited camps in Bangladesh for Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled a violent crackdown by Myanmar’s military.
In her very different role as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. refugee agency, Blanchett told a U.N. Security Council meeting Tuesday that she heard “gut-wrenching accounts” of torture, rape and people seeing loved ones killed before their eyes.
“I am a mother, and I saw my children in the eyes of every single refugee child I met,” she said. “I saw myself in every parent. How can any mother endure seeing her child thrown into a fire.”
The two-time Academy Award winner, including one for best actress, said: “Their experiences will never leave me.”
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