UN dispatches humanitarian aid to war-stricken Syria

The UN on Wednesday dispatched 53 truckloads of humanitarian aid to Idlib, an embattled Syrian province.

The trucks passed through the Cilvegozu border gate in Turkey's southern Hatay province.

The aid will be distributed among residents in urban areas of northwestern Idlib, as well as the surrounding countryside, which have been subject to years of devastating attacks by the Assad regime and its allies, triggering a wave of some one million refugees.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million others displaced, according to UN officials.

Idlib falls within a de-escalation zone laid out in a deal between Turkey and Russia in late 2018. The Syrian regime and its allies, however, have consistently broken the terms of the cease-fire, launching frequent attacks inside the zone.

The de-escalation zone is currently home to some four million civilians, including hundreds of thousands displaced in recent years by regime forces from throughout the war-weary country.

* Writing by Erdogan Cagatay Zontur