Jolie tours refugee camp in India

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Actress Angelina Jolie has taken a break from filming in India to meet refugees from Afghanistan and Burma.

The star toured a refugee camp in New Delhi as part of her role as goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

She also met India's Junior Foreign Minister Anand Sharma and praised the country's stance towards refugees.

She is currently shooting a film about Daniel Pearl, the US reporter who was murdered in Pakistan in 2002.

The actress took her Cambodian-born five-year-old son Maddox to the refugee camp, where she spoke to Sikhs who had been forced out of Afghanistan by the Taleban.

Indian minister Anand Sharma spent 85 minutes with JolieThey also visited the one-room home of a woman who fled Burma when her husband was arrested by the government.

"I am grateful to the refugee families who spent time with me and shared their stories," she said in a statement from the UNHCR. "They are remarkable, courageous people."

After discussions with Mr Sharma, she said she was impressed by India's tolerance.

"The wonderful thing that I have learned since I have been in India is there are many needs for your own people and yet you have all been so gracious and been so open to many, many refugees over the years," she said.

"Another important thing is always encouraging people from different parts of the world and different religions and cultures to maintain who they are and their own language."

Non-violence

Mr Sharma said: "We discussed the Indian tradition and Mahatma Gandhi's principles of peace and non-violence, which continue to be very much relevant even today."

India is home to more than 160,000 refugees, mostly from China and Sri Lanka, according to the UNHCR.

Jolie is filming The Mighty Heart, in which she plays the wife of the Wall Street Journal reporter whose abduction and beheading shocked the world.

The trip comes five months after she gave birth to a daughter, Shiloh Nouvel.