Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, Isla Fisher? Donate $1 Million To Aid Syrian Refugees
British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and his Australian actress wife Isla Fisher are donating $1 million to aid Syrian refugees, Yahoo reports. The two charities receiving the money made the announcement Sunday that the Borat star is giving $500,000 to Save the Children to pay for measles vaccinations for children in northern Syria.
The couple will also donate another half-million to International Rescue Committee to help provide health care, shelter, and sanitation for Syrian refugees, particularly women and children.
According to WorldVision.org, “13.5 million people in Syria need humanitarian assistance. 4.3 million Syrians are refugees, and 6.6 million are displaced within Syria; half are children.”
“The Syrian conflict is now approaching its fifth year and children are the first victims,” Save the Children’s chief executive, Justin Forsyth, said in a statement. “There is no safe place left in Syria, with shelling and violence omnipresent. Food and medicines have become scarce and basic necessities unaffordable.”
Sacha Baron Cohen and his wife donate $1 million to Syrian refugees https://t.co/Hioz1fdklk pic.twitter.com/fEhlYYMQ3p
— Yahoo News (@YahooNews) December 27, 2015
Forsyth says the couple’s donation is “helping highlight the tragedy of the issue today. These are desperate times for Syrian families facing bombs, bullets and torture in Syria. The couple’s donation will save many thousands of lives and protect some of the most vulnerable children.”
David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee also said in the statement, “Now is the time for all of us to double down on commitments to civilians caught up in the Syria conflict.” He called Cohen and Fisher’s donation a “great expression of humanity and a challenge to do more for the most vulnerable.”
As Jezebel notes, “celebrities such as Benedict Cumberbatch, Angelina Jolie and Edward Norton have shown support for Syrian refugees in recent months.” Norton raised over $400,000 during a fundraiser he hosted to help an ailing Syrian scientist who lost his family move to the United States.
Back in September, Angelina Jolie penned an op-ed in The Times addressing the “global refugee crisis.”
“At no time in recent history has there been a greater need for leadership to deal with the consequences and causes of the global refugee crisis,” she wrote. “The Syria conflict has created a wave of human suffering that has rolled out across the region and now reached the shores of Europe. Syrians are fleeing barrel bombs, chemical weapons, rape and massacres. Their country has become a killing field.”
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Baron Cohen is most known for creating and playing four controversial, fictional characters: Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev, Brüno Gehard, and Admiral General Aladeen. He retied Borat and Ali G because the public had become too familiar with the characters.
The award-winning actor first met Isla Fisher in 2002 at a party in Australia. They became engaged in 2004 and got married in Paris in 2010. They have two daughters – Olive and Elula Lottie Miriam – and they welcomed their son, Montgomery Moses Brian, in March 2015.
Before marrying her British Jewish beau, Fisher converted to Judaism, as she explained in the February 2009 issue of Allure magazine.
“I converted as of two years ago. It is always reported that I am still studying, so I am either the slowest studier in the world, or I have, in fact, converted. I never saw it as a losing or gaining situation, just an embracing situation. I think if one wanted to be buried next to one’s beloved and they were Jewish, then one would have to be Jewish, too,” she said.
Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher will next star in Grimsby, in which he plays “the humorous football hooligan brother of a British Mi6 spy.” Co-written by Baron Cohen, the comedy also features Mark Strong, Rebel Wilson, Annabelle Wallis, Penélope Cruz, and Ian McShane. The film is scheduled to be released March 11, 2016. Check out the official trailer below.
[Images courtesy: Twitter]
