Turkish NGO delivers food aid to struggling Syrians

By Izzet Mazi

KILIS, Turkey (AA) - Turkey’s IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation on Thursday announced it had sent four truckloads of rice to Syria.

The IHH representative in Turkey’s Kilis province, Yakup Alaca, said in a press release that the food aid would be delivered to Syrians seeking shelter in camps in safe zones set up after Turkey’s Operation Euphrates Shield.

Alaca said the need for food aid tends to increase during the winter.

“Today we’re sending around 90 tons of rice,” Alaca said, adding that camps would be given priority in terms of distribution.

Last year, Turkey launched Operation Euphrates Shield, a military campaign aimed at clearing the Turkish-Syrian border region of Daesh terrorists.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating civil war that began in 2011. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict and millions more displaced, according to claims by the UN.