ANKARA
Istanbul-based aid agency Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or IHH, has started to send food packages to needy families in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon with the onset of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
One of the leading aid organizations in the Middle East, IHH announced they would send 500 tons aid material, including milk, baby biscuits, Ramadan food packages and hygienic materials to the displaced families in Iraq including Turkmens, Arabs and Kurds.
IHH Secretary-General Yavuz Dede said that five of the 20 trucks carrying the Iraq-bound aid material departed from Istanbul whereas the remaining 15 departed from the Kilis province bordering Syria.
Head of the agency's branch in Bursa province, Huseyin Kaptan, said four trucks had left the province, set to deliver food packages containing flour, dry food and olive to the poor in Syria.
Omer Adil Gul, head of the foundation's social media activities, said IHH delivered aid packages including rice, olive, oil to 300 Syrian refugee families living in camps in Lebanon's northern Akkar district.
Turkey has continued humanitarian aid for Syrian civilians who have limited access to food and medicine since the start of the civil war which entered its fourth year in March, internally displacing more than 6.5 million people.
The Turkish relief agency provides humanitarian services in 120 countries. It opened a branch in the Gaza Strip in 2009 following a bloody and highly destructive Israeli military onslaught on the coastal enclave.
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