Return to Transcripts main page

Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Without a Home: Refugees in Crisis

Aired June 22, 2007 - 23:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, I'm Randi Kaye. A 360 special, "Without a Home: Refugees in Crisis," in a moment. First, a 360 bulletin.
U.S. and Iraqi troops are reportedly gaining ground against insurgents. The U.S. military says at least 68 al Qaeda militants have been killed in the last four days. The attacks are part of Operation Arrowhead Ripper. Targeting insurgents in the highly volatile Diyala Province north and east of Baghdad.

Prayers and praise for fallen heroes in South Carolina. Thousands of firefighters from across America gather to mourn nine firefighters who died when fire swept through a furniture store Monday night. That is the single largest loss of firefighter lives since 9/11.

And a little late, but a picture perfect landing for the Space Shuttle Atlantis. The homecoming was at Edwards Air Force Base in California after weather worries ended plans for a touchdown in Florida. NASA says it will cost nearly $2 million to fly Atlantis back to Florida's Kennedy Space Station, riding piggyback on a jumbo jet. The next shuttle mission is scheduled for August.

Those are the headlines. That does it for me tonight. Now to Anderson with a 360 special, "Without a Home: Refugees in Crisis."

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again.

We are dedicating the program tonight to tough questions about a failure of conscience. Right now as we speak there are nearly 23 million people in the world who can't go home. Imagine one in every 13 people in America homeless. Some are displaced within their own countries. Others have been forced to flee across borders as refugees. Millions more have returned to homes where they are no longer safe.

For the most part, these people who have lost so much and live in fear are being ignored.

Tonight, Actress Angelina Jolie joins me to talk about her work with refugees. As a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Jolie has watched the plight of refugees actually get worse.

In the last year the worldwide refugee population has surged 14 percent to almost 10 million. The number of internally displaced people under UNHCR's care has doubled to more than 14 million. Numbers that big demand some explanation. Together, in the hour ahead, we're going to look at why things aren't getting better for refugees, who is to blame and how these various crises may be solved.

For Jolie, it is a mission that began six years ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: When was it that you knew this is it -- this is going to be a primary focus for me?

ANGELIE JOLIE, ACADEMY AWARD WINNING ACTRESS: The first time I went to a refugee camp.

COOPER: Which camp was that?

JOLIE: Well, my first trip I went to Sierra Leone and then I went to Tanzania. So it was two different -- but it was all under one very long extended few weeks -- and kind of came back with the realization of having met these different groups of people.

COOPER: Was there a moment in that camp in Sierra Leone where you said this is -- this is it. This is for me?

JOLIE: In Sierra Leone it was a realization that there were really -- real horrors in the world and real, and a kind of cruelty and violence that I -- that I really did not know existed. And I did not know people could suffer like that.

And Sierra Leone was where so many people had systematically had their arms and legs cut off and even 3-year-old kids with no arms and legs because they were hatched it off or friends that had to cut off other friends' hands and legs and they were traumatized. And it was -- really to this day the most brutal situation I have ever seen.

So it wasn't as much a thought to work with refugees. It was just I felt so -- I felt so unaware and I felt so naive to the real atrocities happening across the globe and that I knew that I needed to as a woman, as a human being, just I had a responsibility to educate myself with these things and not let them go by unnoticed. Personally, I knew I needed that.

And to never again be confronted with a situation like that and think, my God, how did I not know this was not happening.

And then the more I've gotten to know refugees and refugee families and even those people who lost their limbs, they had a strength and a spirit that I have never seen anywhere else than when I meet a refugee. They have something extraordinary.

COOPER: They have been victimized, but they're not necessarily victims.

JOLIE: They're not victims at all. They don't live as victims. They have -- they certainly know that there has been an injustice and they are very smart people, and I think that that is something that people often don't connect with a refugee. They think of them as a desperate group. But they are, in fact -- my son was a refugee -- they're in fact some of the smartest, I'm sure the most resilient people in the world. And they -- and also many of them before they became refugees, most all of them live lives like ours.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: It's really running to see how quickly the basics of an ordinary life of home, a job, a family can be torn away in an instant. It can happen to anyone.

For Jolie, those first visits to refugee camps were a turning point.

In 2001, as we mentioned, she was named goodwill ambassador to the UNHCR, a role that has profoundly shaped her life ever since.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): It was a role she embraced from the start, identifying the problems faced by people in each country and doing all she could to help.

On her trips for the UNHCR she pays her own way and says she donates one-third of her income to causes she believes in.

JOLIE: I believe in the United Nations and UNHCR because before the vulnerable millions of vulnerable people around the world can be assisted -- their children can be assisted, health care and so forth, they first need protection and they need to be safe.

COOPER: In 2001 Jolie went to Pakistan, visiting some of the more than 2 million Afghan refugees, the world's largest refugee population, according to the U.N. Jolie donated $1 million to help ease their suffering.

In 2002 while making the movie "Beyond Borders," she made her first trip to Namibia, visiting a camp that housed Angolan refugees. She and her production team donated tents, bedding and mattresses.

In Thailand she toured the Thom Han (ph) refugee camp, then spent four days in Ecuador, visiting some of the more than 3 million Columbians who fled their homes in the country's long civil war.

In 2004 Angelina Jolie turned her attention to the refugees from Sudan, visiting a camp in Chad where thousands have fled the fighting in Darfur.

And in 2005 she viewed firsthand the aftermath of the October earthquake in Kashmir.

Last year Jolie took a break from filming "A Mighty Heart" in India to visit refugees from Afghanistan and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

And this year the Jolie-Pitt foundation donated $1 million to relief efforts for the people of Darfur.

She has built a global family by adopting orphans from some of these regions. Mattox from Cambodia, Zahara from Ethiopia, and most recently Pax from Vietnam. Angelina and Brad Pitt's biological daughter, Shiloh, was born in Namibia.

It may seem strange at first, but Jolie says in a sense she has found her place among these people in need. She's found a role she feels is the most important work of her life.

JOLIE: And I do feel more comfortable there, and I will always feel uncomfortable in the middle of New York or Washington all dressed up. I always feel a bit like a (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (on camera): She may see herself like that, but to the world, of course, she is a major movie star. And in the last 12 months, her global mission has taken on new urgency.

As we touched on briefly at the top of the hour, for the first time in five years the number of refugees worldwide rose last year to nearly 10 million largely because of the crisis in Iraq.

Tonight, nearly 2 million Iraqis are internally displaced; 1.5 million are refugees. It's the largest exodus of people in the Middle East in half a century. And the vast majority have fled to Syria and Jordan. And America -- well, the State Department says the U.S. has given refuge to just 701 Iraqis over the last four years. And most of them had begun the process before Saddam Hussein's government fell.

You might think that Iraqis who have risked their lives to help the U.S. would be assured of safety here in America. But many of them say that help isn't coming fast enough.

And tonight we're asking why not?

Here's CNN's Michael Ware.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Despite appearances, this man considers himself lucky. His name is Uday and he's one of the less than 1,000 Iraqis welcomed into the United States since the beginning of the war.

Just after the fall of Baghdad, he was thrilled to help the Americans as an Army translator. But just 35 days into the job, his car was stopped in the street by three men.

(on camera): They shot you in the face and they shot you in the arm.

UDAY, IRAQI REFUGEE: Yes. Yes. They want to shoot my head, you know. But I put my arm like this. WARE (voice-over): In Iraq, working for the Americans can mean signing your own death warrant. Retribution from Sunni insurgents and Shia militia is severe. But the State Department's official advice, even for those shot, threatened or with family members kidnapped, is simply to get out of Iraq.

(on camera): The military didn't help you?

UDAY: No.

WARE: The American government didn't help you?

UDAY: Nobody.

WARE (voice-over): Uday wasn't rescued by the Army, but by a chance encounter with this woman running a tiny charity to get surgery for wounded Iraqi children.

ELISSA MONTANTI, FOUNDER, GLOBAL MEDICAL RELIEF FUND: There wasn't any support coming from the government, coming from anywhere. Uday was on his own.

WARE: Kirk Johnson is on a one-man crusade to save hundreds of others. Now a civilian after working for a year in Iraq with the State Department's aid agency, USAID, he's called a list of more than 400 Iraqi translators like Uday now at risk who need rescue.

KIRK JOHNSON, FORMER USAID WORKER: I don't know why it's taking so long because we're usually the leaders in the world at resettling refugees. Yet for whatever reason, with these particular refugees, we seem to have forgotten how to do what we do best.

WARE: Since the war began, according to the State Department, only 701 Iraqis have made it to U.S. shores. And of those, but a few are victims of the war. The rest, refugees from a regime that fell four years ago, Saddam Hussein's.

JOHNSON: These people have been raped. They have been kidnapped. They have had family members killed. All because they were identified as working for the United States government.

WARE: So far he says not one of his 400 plus list has made it out.

JOHNSON: I have never been more ashamed of my government now. Those Iraqis that worked for us, when I see them fleeing without even anything other than a sort of good luck from us, it turns my stomach.

WARE: While pumping billions of dollars a week into the fight, the U.S. has offered a comparatively meager $150 million this year to boost ailing support services in the countries like Syria and Jordan awash with these desperate Iraqis. And of the 4 million displaced Iraqis around the world, America has so far only brought in a relative handful into the country, while other Western countries like Sweden and Australia have taken in tens of thousands.

Why does the country that started that war lag so far behind? The answers are in Washington.

Ellen Sauerbrey is the assistant secretary of state responsible for assisting these refugees.

(on camera): Has America met its profound obligation to these Iraqis?

ELLEN SAUERBREY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: Americans do care and we do feel that moral commitment. Are we moving as quickly as we need to? Are we finding the people that need our assistance as quickly as I wish we were? No. But we are moving forward now.

WARE: Sauerbrey says it's a delicate balance. America recognizes the humanitarian need, but she says there are added security concerns for bringing in refugees from a country the U.S. is still fighting.

The process just now put in place of granting an Iraqi refugee status in the United States takes four to six months, and those who work directly with the U.S. government in Iraq are fast tracked.

But Sauerbrey says it's difficult to find them. A claim disputed by Kirk Johnson. And while the U.S. recently said it expects to take in some 2,500 Iraqis into the country this year, Sauerbrey suggested the government could take even more.

SAUERBREY: There is no cap on the numbers.

WARE (on camera): So you will bring in as many as is needed?

SAUERBREY: We will be bringing people in as quickly as we can get them through security clearance.

WARE: No one will be left behind?

SAUERBREY: It may take time.

WARE (voice-over): That it seems is a profound understatement. Just last month, only one Iraqi was cleared to arrive in the U.S.

JOHNSON: They still have a chance to save these people's lives. They are still living. They are running for their lives. But the game isn't over yet.

WARE: It's only just begun for Uday.

If you are wondering why we haven't told you his last name, it's because he asked we didn't out of security concerns for both him and his wife and four children. That's because they are still in Iraq. They have just been granted asylum, but because of the ongoing violence, it's unclear when they will be able to leave.

Michael Ware, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: In February, under pressure to do more, U.S. officials promised to admit up to 7,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of the year. But as Michael just reported, they now expect just 2,500 Iraqis to be admitted by year's end.

So should America do more? Is there amoral obligation to do more? That's where my interview with Angelina Jolie picks up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Iraq. The number of refugees from Iraq has exploded in this past year. Do you think America is living up to its moral obligation to refugees from Iraq?

JOLIE: I think we need to support Syria and Jordan. And I think we need to be -- support UNHCR, support people that are handling the very, very large caseload of internally displaced and the refugee population in these areas that are already strained.

I think as for the amount we take in, I believe the number they are trying to take in, they are planning on taking in is something like 7,000.

I do know that there's a reality of how long it takes to bring a refugee into this country and the paperwork and it is extensive. That's not an excuse for them, but I'm -- I'm hoping that they will bring in more people. But in the meantime, I think the bigger thing is that I think they really need to support and give proper aid to those countries that are hosting the millions of people.

COOPER: There are many concerns in the United States about security, about allowing Iraqis in, and, you know, are you -- which Iraqis are you allowing in? Are you allowing in people who have helped the United States as interpreters or people who have connections to al Qaeda or insurgent groups. That's a legitimate fear.

JOLIE: Sure. You know, but honestly, as I said before, I'm more worried about the millions and millions of vulnerable people that have no access to decent quality of life who are going to be brought in to terrorist groups because that's their only option or kids that don't have any schools or any food and there's a Jihadi school that's free down the road that offers lunch. I'm more worried about that. I'm more worried about the kind of what's happening on a global scale than are we scanning the few thousand.

COOPER: Do you think the -- you know, what's commonly referred to as the war on terror, do you think that's made life harder for refugees?

JOLIE: Certainly for people to want to seek asylum in the states, absolutely. And I think people's perception of people from other countries has become increasingly negative and there's more of a -- there's more misunderstanding, more anger.

I think the sadder thing that has happened in the last few years is when I first started traveling which was six years ago now, a lot of people wanted to come to the U.S. and a lot of the people said, oh, you're from America. I love America. And a lot of them wanted -- that was their destination choice. And it's very different now. There's a very different feeling about America internationally.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Our changing world. The feedback on America, not the same as it was years ago.

Just ahead on this 360 special, inside a danger zone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER (voice-over): Millions of Afghan refugees, now many are forced to go home. Few jobs are waiting, but the Taliban may be.

PETER MARSDEN, AFGHAN SPECIALIST: Iran may intentionally be sending young men back in the hope that they will then be recruited by the Taliban.

COOPER: It didn't have to be this way. Who is to blame and why America may pay the price.

From Afghanistan to Darfur to Cambodia, she is on a global mission, a mission shaped by motherhood. Her family, a reflection of her mission.

JOLIE: And when I met my kids, and they were just little people that were on their own, you know, that they were to me extraordinary and felt just like family.

COOPER: Angelina Jolie describes why she's creating a global family and if more kids are on the way. Next, on "Without a Home: Refugees in Crisis."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN GRAPHIC)

Afghanistan:

Largest refugee population in world (2.1 million)

25 percent of primary school age children do not attend

Over 50 percent of people live below poverty line

(END GRAPHIC)

COOPER (on camera): Tonight, more than 2 million Afghans are living outside their country -- 2 million. It is the world's largest refugee population.

Afghanistan has seen so many wars and other struggles, it's hard to know where to begin to explain the exodus.

And many fear the crisis is about to get worse. The vast majority of Afghan refugees have fled to Pakistan and Iran. And now both countries are threatening to send them home. And home, of course, is a shattered country where the Taliban has built new inroads and is eager for new recruits.

More from CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): For these Afghan refugees in Iran, life is about to get tough. Almost 1 million Afghans live here, according to the U.N. Many fled the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. Many were born here.

More than 1 million others live in Pakistan and there may be millions more in both countries who were not registered with the U.N.

The Afghan refugee problem is the biggest in the world. Most have no jobs to go home to. Now Iran is forcing hundreds of thousands of Afghans out.

Pakistan, on the other side of Afghanistan, plans the same. It wants all Afghan refugees gone by 2010.

Millions of people without a home. Many ripe for recruitment by the Taliban.

PETER MARSDEN, AFGHAN SPECIALIST: The risk of the insurgency strengthening as a result of the expulsions of the people from Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan is huge.

ROBERTSON: Marsden has tracked Afghan refugees for decades and says Iran's moves could be intended to disrupt U.S. interests.

MARSDEN: Iran may intentionally be sending young men back in the hope that they will then be recruited by the Taliban which will then make the job of the U.S. more difficult in Afghanistan.

ROBERTSON: Millions of refugees, a breeding ground for terror. How did the situation get this bad? It's been a slow build, U.N. officials say.

During the Soviet occupation almost three decades ago a quarter of all Afghans fled the country. Refugee camps became recruiting grounds for fighters overthrowing the red army. And then later for the Taliban.

When the U.S. overthrew the Taliban almost six years ago, more than 4 million refugees returned, says the U.N.

TIM IRWIN, UNHCR SPOKESMAN: The return of Afghan refugees since the fall of the Taliban represents the largest organized movement of people anywhere on earth at any point. ROBERTSON: But the figures are misleading, caution some experts. The returning refugees needed work. The West didn't invest, so there were no jobs. Millions had no incentive to return. Some even came back to Afghanistan and then left again. Almost everyone agrees, however, the West should have done more to help.

IRWIN: I think many Afghans are asking themselves, so, you know, when are things really going to get better? I think the responsibility for fulfilling those promises is one which is -- should be borne by everyone in the international community.

ROBERTSON: But it's not just the West who are to blame, according to Marsden. The Afghan government also shares responsibility.

MARSDEN: It's enormously difficult for big businessmen to kind of deal with the red tape that the government creates, to deal with the fact that the government continues to be highly corrupt.

ROBERTSON: So fingers are pointing in all directions. But how does it get fixed? For all countries to drop national agendas and invest solely for the Afghan's benefits, say experts, and that they add is not likely to happen.

The U.N. predict voluntary returns are effectively over. Any refugees arriving in Afghanistan now are likely forced. Taliban violence is also stopping refugees going home. But if Iran and Pakistan have their way, that violence could well explode.

Nic Robertson, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: As Nic mentioned, for some Afghans, the difficult journey home has already begun. Afghans are already being sent back home to unsafe conditions. And for aid workers at the refugee camps, it is heartbreaking work.

Angela Jolie saw it up close. We talked about what that was like.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: What were the camps -- the Afghan camps that you went to, what were they like? Because it has among the largest refugee population anywhere.

JOLIE: Yes, it still has the largest refugee population, which I think says a lot about our inability to stabilize that situation.

COOPER: Why do you think it is that we haven't been able to stabilize it? Do you think -- is it resources have been put into Iraq that could have gone to Afghanistan?

JOLIE: You know, it seems like we have -- we have a very good, as an international community or as a country ourselves, when we need to go to war, we have strategies and plans and big offices and we have a plan of attack. We know this. When it's to fight terrorism, we have lots of different mandates that are very focused and very detailed.

We don't seem to be very good at having a plan for reconstruction and peace. Every time that situation occurs, we seem to be reinventing it and starting all over and trying to figure out how best to do this or that or -- we don't take it as seriously as we should. We don't make it as much of a priority as we should. And we don't have a very specific clear mandate on how to do that.

And so, you know, you have Afghanistan and you have so many people who are internally displaced and so many people who are still refugees.

But I, myself, put people back a few years ago, had to put people back on buses to say, OK, it's time -- because when a situation -- when there's a war and when the war is over, even people watching this, we expect to hear how many people have returned? What are the numbers? What's the positive news? And they want those answers quickly and donor countries want those answers quickly. And it is not a quick thing to do to return a people who have been uprooted for 20 years and to go into a country that is so broken and just assume you can put people on buses and return them.

COOPER: So you were in a camp in Pakistan, actually returning people to...

(CROSSTALK)

JOLIE: Actually putting people on a bus, but having women say to me -- and I was with a UNHCR colleague who was very emotional. It was very difficult for them because they had no more resources to keep them in Pakistan, but they knew they were sending them into a place that had no schools, no water, was not necessarily safe. No even local hospital set up properly for their kids, but it was time to return. The international community had said it's time to move.

And if it's not stable, then they are more vulnerable people subject to ideological capture by extremist groups and we are allowing that to happen and we know how dangerous that is.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: It is very dangerous.

Coming up, another troubled area, possibly the most talked about refugee crisis in the world. The question is, why hasn't the killing stopped in Darfur?

Plus, candid talk for Angelina Jolie about her other global mission, motherhood. How she's creating a family as she travels around the world and whether she's planning on adopting or have more kids. That's next on this 360 special, "Without a Home: Refugees in Crisis."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOLIE: When I met my kids and they were just little people that were on their own, you know, that they were to me extraordinary and felt just like family and that is I suppose how having traveled this much, how I feel about the world and other people's kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN GRAPHIC)

How You Can Help

Contact the UNHCR

www.unhcr.org/give

USA Toll-free (800)770-1100 International Direct Dial: ++1323-913-7500

(END GRAPHIC)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: For almost six years while Angelina Jolie has been working with refugees, she's also been creating a family. She's adopted three children from Vietnam, Ethiopia and Cambodia and also has a biological daughter with Actor Brad Pitt.

We talked about the global family she's building and how her work with refugees has shaped it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Seeing people in refugee camps, seeing families, seeing children, unaccompanied minors, does it change the way you view your own kids or interact with your kids?

JOLIE: I suppose. It might be part of the reason my kids are from some of those countries and were on their own. so I -- I'm sure that has had an impact in the way my family has come together. But I feel very closely to -- to -- just to children or people around the world and certainly when I met my kids and they were just little people that were on their own, you know, that they were to me extraordinary and felt just like family and that is I suppose how having traveled this much how I feel about the world and other people's kids.

COOPER: How do you decide where you're -- I mean, how do you find a child in Ethiopia or how do you decide where you are going to look for a child?

JOLIE: I don't really. I mean, I didn't -- I didn't from the beginning. I just -- my -- the first child I adopted was Cambodian and I just had been there for a film and then I went back with the U.N. and I fell in love with the people of Cambodia because they had suffered through so much and they were so loving and open and interesting and so I fell in love with the country first.

And then I was sitting with a little kid in a clinic playing blocks, and I remember just looking over and thinking, you know, thinking that I felt my son was somewhere there, which is strange. It was a world feeling, but I suddenly thought, and he was.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: More on Angelina Jolie's personal connection to the refugee crisis is coming up.

Plus, inside a refugee camp and a child changed forever by the crisis in Darfur.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER (voice-over): She is two years old and weighs less than 10 pounds.

MIKE LATTIMER, EXEC. DIR., MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP: To be born in one of those camps now must give you one of the worst possible life expectancies in the world. It must place you as a child in one of the worst possible situations you could be.

COOPER: Millions of refugees from Darfur, many of them children living on the edge. Why is this happening and who is to blame?

Also ahead, Angelina Jolie's global juggling act -- on a mission to save lives, but also making movies while raising four young children with Brad Pitt. How does she do it?

JOLIE: I am a big planner. I do. I schedule things like crazy. You know, I only work sporadically now. And when I do -- I think Brad's a great dad and he's with the kids when I am working.

COOPER: More from my interview with Angelina Jolie on this 360 special.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN GRAPHIC)

Sudan:

686,000 refugees

Est. 5 million internally displaced

At least 200,000 have died due to conflict

(END GRAPHIC)

COOPER (on camera): Some call those numbers proof of a crisis of conscience. For more than four years, the Sudanese military and Janjaweed militia have waged war against rebel and ethnic tribes in Darfur. Hundreds of thousands have died and millions have been forced from their homes while the world has watched.

America has called the situation genocide and spent billions in aid to refugees. They've also imposed sanctions which some critics say aren't harsh enough.

The world has seen genocide before. How could it possibly be happening again? And how did things get to this point? That's another question we have tonight.

Here's CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): For 2-year-old Ashta Dumi (ph) and thousands of other children like her, the Javal Refugee Camp (ph) is a terrible place to grow up.

MIKE LATTIMER, EXEC. DIR., MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP: To be born in one of those camps now must give you one of the worst possible life expectancies in the world.

GUPTA (on camera): No doubt it is not easy to take care of people in a refugee camp. But here's where it gets really difficult. This is a structure built specifically to take care of malnourished children.

For example, Ashta Dumi (ph) here, who is 2 years old and weighs less than 10 pounds. Her mother knows she doesn't have a very good chance of survival, but they're doing the best they can trying to get her to eat as much as they can.

(voice-over): Ashta (ph) is one of millions of refugees from Darfur and Sudan forced to flee their villages in hopes of finding safe haven somewhere else.

I was curious, why is this happening? It began as a battle between militias that serve the Sudanese government, nomadic Arab fighters called the Janjaweed and rebel groups comprised of black Africans who say they are simply fighting back against government oppression.

Regardless, it is the Sudanese civilians who are paying the price -- 200,000 dead. Nearly 6 million displaced, according to the internal displacement monitoring center. That's the why. But what about the who?

The finger pointing starts with Sudan's government eager to push out local farmers and take over their land.

LATTIMER: That has since escalated into a full scale ethnic cleansing. There is no doubt that the single biggest responsibility must lie with the Sudanese government. GUPTA: That is a charge the Sudanese government denies.

(on camera): To your best of your knowledge -- I know you have only been in the position for 13 months, but you're a Sudanese. What about before that? Was there a government sponsored genocide over the last five years? Seven years? Ten years?

JOHN UKEC, SUDAN AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: I am -- I am not going to -- and I reserve my opinion about that.

GUPTA: People believe that there was and I think that's part of the problem.

UKEC: They believe that there was. It is no longer there because the system of government has changed. The warring parties have changed. The (UNINTELLIGIBLE) party that was fighting the government has joined the government.

GUPTA (voice-over): Some human rights advocates say the blame doesn't stop there. There's plenty to go around. And the United Nations certainly shoulder some.

LATTIMER: Reports from the U.N.'s principal aid official in Darfur were ignored effectively by the political hierarchy at the U.N. in New York. And the warning signs were -- in fact, the warning shouts were ignored.

GUPTA: Even today with all we know, the U.N. will not call the situation in Sudan genocide and refuses to level sanctions against the government. Why? In a word, China.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF, "NEW YORK TIMES" REPORTER: China is a net oil importer, and it gets oil from Sudan. And as a result, it has been protecting Sudan on the U.N. security council and blocking any resolutions that would really put a lot of pressure on Sudan or that would force troops into Sudan.

GUPTA: The question now, of course, is can it be stopped?

KRISTOF: Ultimately there is no magic solution that is going to just end this overnight. But we have an awful lot of levers out there that we haven't pushed adequately.

GUPTA: Wheels within political wheels, none of which help ease the pain of Ashta Dumi (ph) and the millions like her, fighting to stay alive while others fight over the land that was once their home.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: We have been telling the story of Darfur for years now on this program, but it seems no number of dispatches from the region, no amount of public awareness has slowed the killing. And still, no one has been brought to justice. Angelina Jolie has been to the region three times. And like Sanjay, she recently visited a camp in Chad housing refugees from Darfur.

We talked about a little boy she met and her outrage over all that's not being done.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: I know that in Darfur the number of internally displaced people has grown dramatically in the last year.

You were in a camp -- there's a photo of you with a 7-year-old boy, I think, who was tied to a pole. What was that?

JOLIE: It was as shocking as it is to see that picture. I was shocked when I saw that. And my instinct, with children of my own, was how could this kid be tied? Somebody let him go and somebody take care of him and somebody -- the reality is he was -- he was about 3 years old, they said, when the bombs hit and he was in Darfur, and he disappeared for 48 hours. And before that he was a very normal little boy.

And now he -- he -- and I did see him do it, but he tries to hurt himself. He does -- I forget the name for it, but he whacks himself into walls and he goes running off and he will try to -- he'll try to hurt himself and others. And he's -- and after spending about a half an hour with him, I thought maybe they thought that it was from the bombs, but maybe he's just -- there is something different about his mind. You know, maybe he's an autistic child. Maybe he's -- but I spent a half an hour with him, and he was a very normal little kid. He was just really, really scared. Really scared. And to spend half an hour and just touch him and pet him and, you know, and hold him and look at him. And it's really -- it's a part of conflict that we often don't have the time to also think about.

You know, these people that have been through all of this. Every refugee, what they have gone through. The therapy that it would require, the deep, deep internal wound that has happened to these people and what they are going to need. Not just a new house and, you know, some food aid. But really what they all need.

COOPER: And the stories you hear in those camps are pretty chilling.

JOLIE: Yes, they are horrible. They are horrible. They are the worse things you could possibly imagine. Somebody killing your children. Somebody making you possibly eat your children. Somebody cutting, you know, somebody forcing you to cut your father's hands off. Somebody, you know, raping, systematic rape of very, very little girls. Raping them so badly that they have been torn open so much that they are leaking feces. Yes. It's -- there's no word for it.

COOPER: Is there a solution in Darfur? I mean, it's in the headlines. It's probably the most publicized, you know, there are rallies about it. There are newspaper ads about it. The president has called it a genocide. The U.S. has given more than $2 billion over the last two years to help Darfuri refugees. The U.S. just imposed recently sanctions, and yet the killings continue. The internally displaced populations grow. It seems to defy a solution.

JOLIE: I think there is -- this is that question where I have to be -- I get very -- I get very angry about this issue, so I tend to have to take a deep breath.

COOPER: Angry because?

JOLIE: Angry because I think we have not -- I think we have a problem with not being able to hold people accountable who commit these crimes. And until we are able to do that as an international community, until we are able to back up the steps we take towards justice in a very, very strong way, I don't see what it is that we are doing.

And we -- the security council referred the case of Darfur to the international criminal court. The international criminal court had two indictments and two arrest warrants have now been issued for two men inside Darfur.

And it is the most important thing I think that can happen is to press Basheer (ph) to hand over these two men. And if we don't, I think it is saying and sending a message through Darfur that the guy holding a gun on a little girl right now and raping her, he's going to think, I'm not going to be held accountable because these men are not being pulled in. They are being protected.

Even the security council and the international criminal court can't get them. They are protected. So how are we going to send a message to all these people doing all these terrible things to say you cannot do this and you cannot get away with it?

COOPER: Is there such a thing as international justice? I mean, the security council of China and Russia can veto harsh sanctions and China needs oil. They get oil from Sudan. Sudan uses Chinese weapons.

JOLIE: I've -- I mean, that's -- yes, I think we -- I personally am curious about -- it is something I'm studying. I don't know the answer to. But I'm curious about how the security council exists as it does and what any member country of the security council, is there anything that they have to be held responsible to in order to maintain membership?

And from what I have found, absolutely nothing. They are just the members.

COOPER: There are others who call for a no fly zone. They say that would be pretty easy to do. U.S. has a base in Chad.

JOLIE: Yes. I think there should be a no fly zone. Certainly.

COOPER: You would support that? JOLIE: Yes. I support sanctions. I support no fly zone. I support troops coming in -- peacekeeper troops coming in, I'll be clear. But at the same time, I think you do all of that and you don't follow through on these arrest warrants and you're not -- and the future does not look good for international justice.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Still ahead on this 360 special, how the most famous mom on the planet juggles her growing family, her movie career and her mission to help the world refugees. And does she plan on having more kids, ahead on 360.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOLIE: It's -- it's just made me a better person. I wake up in the morning and I -- ever since I have started working with refugees, there's never been one morning where I have woken up and wished for more in my life or thought poor me about anything because I am so, so fortunate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN GRAPHIC)

How You Can Help

Contact the UNHCR

www.unhcr.org/give

USA Toll-free (800)770-1100 International Direct Dial: ++1323-913-7500

(END GRAPHIC)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN GRAPHIC)

Countries Hosting the Most Refugees

Pakistan: 1 million Iran: 968,000 USA: 844,000 Syria: 702,000 Germany: 605,000

(END GRAPHIC)

COOPER: Angelina Jolie has traveled to refugee camps in more than 20 countries as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees. And that alone would be enough for many people to take on.

What she sees in the camps is not for the faint of heart. The stories the refugees tell her, as she put it earlier, are heavy. But along with the heaviness comes inspiration.

She and Brad Pitt are raising four kids, three of them adopted. She told me she would like to have more kids, possibly many more.

Here's what else she told me about her mission and motherhood and how she manages to juggle both.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: How has doing this work changed you? How has it changed you as a mom? As a woman? As a wife?

JOLIE: I'm not a wife.

COOPER: Well, sorry. You're right.

JOLIE: It's...

COOPER: Maybe some day.

JOLIE: It's just made me a better person. You know, I wake up in the morning and I -- ever since I have started working with refugees, there's never been one morning where I have woken up and wished for more in my life or thought poor me about anything because I am so, so fortunate.

And anytime I have -- even if it's something serious that's going on or the loss of a parent or going through a scare with a kid, you know, anything like that, I just take a deep breath and remember all the people I have met that have been through 100 times more pain than I will ever, ever know in my life.

And it makes me a better person. It makes me able to never feel sorry for myself certainly.

COOPER: I've read recently you said -- actually it's an old quote that you said you wanted to have ultimately eight kids. Is that still...

JOLIE: We fluctuate between like seven and 12, so.

COOPER: Seven and 12? Really?

JOLIE: We'll see where we land.

COOPER: Are you considering another child already?

JOLIE: Sure. We're always thinking about it. Right now we're just -- we have four and the fourth is only home a few months, so we are just making sure that everybody has enough time. It takes -- it can take a full day, making sure that everybody has special attention.

COOPER: And how are you able to do this? I mean, go to these refugee camps and work and raise a family? I mean, four kids, it's a lot. You must have a day planner.

JOLIE: I am a big planner. I do. I schedule things like crazy.

You know, I only work sporadically now and when I do, Brad's a great dad and he's with the kids when I am working so we take turns as parents.

And as for refugee work, I love it. And it is -- it is, you know, some people like to go on vacation. I love to feel that I am being somewhat useful in the world and I love traveling. And I really -- I've had a beautiful time sitting with refugee families and learning about them and who they are. And it's inspiring and it takes nothing out of me. It is a real pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: We would like to thank Angelina Jolie and the UNHCR for all of their hard work and for providing us with many of the images you saw on this 360 special.

If you'd like to help, here's how. You can contact the UNHCR by going to its Web site at www.UNHCR.org/give. By phone, the toll-free number in the U.S. is (800)770-1100.

Thanks for joining us on this 360 special, "Without a Home: Refugees in Crisis."

I'm Anderson Cooper.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.voxant.com