Affleck Still Leading the Congo Line

Actor makes his fourth trip to the war-torn central Africa country in a year to visit refugees

By Gina Serpe Nov 20, 2008 4:10 PMTags
Ben Affleck, CongoAP Photo/Karel Prinsloo

As far as the Ben Affleck scale of disasters is concerned, a nationwide humanitarian crisis still trumps a pregnant wife's stalker.

While Jennifer Garner is home battling an obsessive fan, Affleck is paying his fourth visit in a year to war-torn Congo, raising awareness of its plight by visiting refugee camps and meeting with aid workers.

The 36-year-old Oscar winner, who last traveled to central Africa back in May, as a special correspondent for Nightline, continues to make good on pledging his considerable star power to the country's even more considerable cause: At least 250,000 people have been displaced by violence in the area and an estimated 5 million people were killed in the nation's four-year war.

The actor turned activist even made a documentary on the Congo troubles, often overlooked in favor of the celeb-saturated Darfur devastation, and wrote an essay about his last trip last spring.