Turkish aid agency helps 160,000 families in Iraq

The Turkish Red Crescent has sent humanitarian aid to around 160,000 displaced families in Iraq since ISIS terrorist group overran the northern city of Mosul in 2014, Anadolu Agency quoted a Turkish aid official as saying on Monday.

“We have delivered 463 trucks of humanitarian aid, brought from Turkey through 46 shipments, to nearly 160,000 families in 18 regions in Iraq,” Serdar Yilmaz, head of Turkish Red Crescent delegation in Iraq, said. 

He said the aid included food, clothes, hygiene kits and basic humanitarian materials. 

The Turkish Red Crescent has scaled up its humanitarian activities in Iraq since ISIS captured Mosul and other parts of northern and western Iraq in 2014. 

Yilmaz said the aid agency has distributed meat among 10,000 families in Iraq.

According to Yilmaz, the Turkish Red Crescent has been producing 5,000 breads per day as part of a “bakery project” in three tent camps near Erbil, which hosts thousands of people who have fled from Mosul. 

Yilmaz stressed that the Turkish aid agency also continues to reach needy people across Iraq. 

In mid-February, Iraqi army forces -- backed by a US-led air coalition -- began fresh operations aimed at purging remaining ISIS terrorists from Mosul’s western districts. 

The offensive comes as part of a wider operation launched last October to retake the entire city.