ISLAMABAD, Sept 8: Hollywood star Angelina Jolie urged people on Wednesday to put aside corruption fears and donate cash to help 21 million flood victims, as she ended a tour of areas devastated by deluges.The government has been heavily criticised at home and abroad over perceived corruption, which many attribute to the slow pace of donations to the UN's flood appeal, which has raised two thirds of its $460 million goal.

"I don't want some people to use it (corruption) as an excuse not to give assistance," Jolie told reporters at the UN refugee agency office here.

"I have seen what they have done in the field. I've physically seen people assisted, so if you are nervous about giving money directly in one way there are other ways to do it," she said.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said its own appeal is only half-funded, and Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said extra monies were "still stagnating". Jolie, clad in a grey dress and black head scarf, spoke after visiting the militant-hit northwest of the country.

"I think the size of this disaster's one that I have never seen the scale of," she said. It was Jolie's fourth visit to Pakistan since she became a UNHCR goodwill ambassador in 2001.

Speaking of the flood-hit villagers she had met during her travels to the northwest, she said she was particularly moved by an elderly couple in their 70s who had built their lives from nothing and seen it all washed away.

"If I could put a face on this disaster it would be those wonderful, kind, funny and hard working people who lost everything," she added.

She said she met women who had lost children, and children who asked her only for electricity, water and food, among the many 'resilient' survivors.

Asked if she would consider adopting a child from Pakistan, Jolie — a mother of six including three adopted children from abroad — said she would not consider it because of religious sensitivities, adding there were other ways to sponsor a child.—AFP