Turkey dispatches 6 truckloads of aid to Syria

By Sengul Azbay

KOCAELI, Turkey (AA) - Six truckloads of humanitarian aid on Friday was dispatched from Turkey's northwestern Kocaeli province to Syria.

The aid was jointly collected by the local municipality and the Turkish Hayrat Aid Organization. It will be distributed to needy people in the province of Idlib.

Syria has been ravaged by a civil war since early 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protesters.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced, according to UN estimates.

Idlib falls within a de-escalation zone forged under an agreement between Turkey and Russia. The area has been the subject of multiple cease-fire understandings, which have frequently been violated by the Syrian regime and its allies.

*Writing by Ahmet Gencturk