Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt visited Costa Rica this Christmas to bring awareness to the plight of Columbian refugees there. Jolie has been an ambassador for the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees and wants the world to know of the millions of Columbians that have been forced from their homes in the twenty years of conflict in the Central American nation.

Jolie arrived in Costa Rica today and was to visit a group of refugee children and families and to meet Costa Rican officials, UNHCR said in a statement.

There are about 11,500 refugees in the Central American country, most of whom fled Colombia because of the conflict there between leftist guerrillas, soldiers and paramilitary forces.

“The conflict in Colombia is the greatest humanitarian tragedy in the Western Hemisphere, but it receives very little international attention,” the Oscar-winning actress said after she arrived in San Jose.

“My Christmas message to Colombian refugees and to the millions of displaced people in Colombia is that the world has not totally forgotten them.”

An estimated three million Colombians have been forced from their homes by more than two decades of armed conflict, and most are internally displaced, essentially refugees in their own country.

Another 500,000 have fled to other countries in the region. Together, the press statement said, they make up the largest single population of concern to UNHCR anywhere in the world.

Jolie and Pitt visited small business set up by Columbian refugees in Costa Rica thanks to micro loans from the UN. Micro loans, in amounts of just hundred of dollars, can help people in impoverished nations set up small businesses and escape a life of poverty.

This year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is Muhammad Yunus, a pioneer in the field of micro loans in his nation of Bangladesh. You can learn more about how micro loans help through The Grameen Foundation.

People talk a lot of crap about how Brad and Angelina are doing charity for publicity, but Angelina seems to geniunely care about the plight of the people she visits. I’ve personally learned quite a bit from doing the research about her recent charity work. She seems to have reined in her agressive security staff, and her image has improved as a result.

Here are pictures of Brad and Angelina in Costa Rica, as well as some small shots of her shopping at LA boutique Kitson in LA on 12/21. Pictures from SimplyBrad, The Age, and China Daily. (Note that the China Daily article has some quotes from Angelina Jolie saying her family will be celebrating four Christmases or some shit. The source is Britain’s Grazia magazine, which routinely makes up quotes from celebrities. It doesn’t sound like Angelina to me at all.)