Turkish foundation sends over 1,000 aid trucks to Syria

HATAY, Turkey

Turkey’s Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) has announced it dispatched over 1,000 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid to Syrians in the first three months of the year.

“We’ve sent 1,518 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid, including basic foodstuff to Hama, Homs, Aleppo countryside, Idlib and its countryside,” Selim Tosun, a media adviser of the foundation’s Hatay branch, told Anadolu Agency Monday.

Tosun said the foundation was trying to heal the wounds of Syrians together with other aid organizations in Turkey and abroad. He added the Turkish body would not waste any time in sending aid to other parts of the country.

The aid organization also said it sent over 12,000 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid to Syria so far since the civil war started.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, more than a quarter-million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to the UN.

The Humanitarian Relief Foundation is one of the leading aid agencies in the country, which sends humanitarian aid to suffering people across the world, including war-torn-Syria, drought-hit Somalia, and conflict-torn regions in Myanmar.

Reporting by Cem Genco;Writing by Nilay Kar