Hawzah News Agency - (Hatay - Turkey) - Muslim Hands, a U.K.-based charity set up by the country's Muslim community, delivered 81 truckloads of rice to Syrian refugees in Turkey and the internally displaced in war-torn Syria.
London-based Muslim Hands, an international nonprofit organization founded by the Muslim community in the U.K., delivered 81 trucks full of rice to Syrian refugees and displaced Syrians.
Charity officials handed the aid, worth $1.7 million, to Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) and Turkish Red Crescent in Hatay, a southern province on the border with Syria, yesterday.
The Turkish Red Crescent will gradually deliver 31 trucks of aid to refugees living in camps inside Turkey. The rest will be delivered by AFAD to the displaced Syrians who took shelter in Idlib.
Idlib is the flash point city at the heart of constant attacks by regime forces in war-torn Syria.
The Red Crescent will deliver the rice among Syrians living in refugee camps in southeastern Turkey's Hatay and other provinces, including Osmaniye, Adana, Kahramanmaraş, Kilis and Gaziantep.
Muslim Hands Chairman Syed Lakhte Hassan said the campaign for aid was organized by Pakistani Muslims in the U.K., France and South Africa and they gathered a large amount of donations within a short time. He said they'd continue supplying aid to Syrians.
Turkish Red Crescent official Uğur Mahmut said they started delivering the rice to refugees and a total of 244 tons of rice would be handed to Turkey's Syrian guests. Muslim Hands last year delivered rice, flour and canned food worth 1.5 million pounds to Syrian refugees in Turkey.
Since 2011, Turkey has received a constant flow of displaced Syrians, fleeing the conflict, and their numbers have expanded from mere thousands to millions.
The conflict in Syria that started in 2011 has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced more than 5 million people to flee, while more than 7 million are internally displaced. Refugees mainly took shelter in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, with Turkey hosting the largest number of refugees.