Actress and model Lily Cole has spearheaded a charity Christmas appeal by visiting a huge refugee camp on the Burmese border.
Lily, 22, spent four days at Nai Soi camp in Mae Hong Son, which is on the border between Thailand and Burma and houses 15,000 refugees.
Some of the people in the camp have lived there for up to 26 years after fleeing the conflict in their native Burma, which has raged for over 60 years.
Cole made the trip as part of her role in Christian Aid’s Christmas appeal and is only the second high-profile Westerner, after Angelina Jolie, to visit the camp.
The cover girl, who is currently studying for a degree in History of Art at Cambridge University, described the possibility of the camp losing funding as ”frightening”.
She said: ”Some of the refugees have lived in these camps for 26 years. It’s a difficult idea to get my head around.
”The camps offer a refuge for people who have nowhere else in the world to feel safe and secure.
”If the funds were removed there would be nowhere for them to go. It’s frightening. There wouldn’t be this space filled with so many children laughing and playing.”
Nai Soi camp is one of nine refugee sites on the Thailand Burma border which shelter a total of 145,000 people.
Since 1985 Christian Aid has worked with the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) to provide them with food and shelter.
