A BRENTWOOD based charity has been busy packing up aid parcels to send out to Syria as the war worsens in the Middle Eastern country.

Hope and Aid Direct, based in Ingatestone is a humanitarian aid charity that takes aid out to Kosovo and areas of the Balkans each year and was set up by Charles Storer, who also lives in Ingatestone, in 1999.

The charity was recently featured on the BBC news because of its most recent work in sending out a huge container of aid out to Syria.

John Desty, who is a trustee and based in Southampton, said the organisation has more than 200 volunteers scattered round the country and they send out two large aid containers each year.

He said: “This is the first time we have ever sent out aid to Syria. We have been watching the political situation slowly worsen out there and we thought it was time we did something.

“We have joined up with Heart to Hand charity which has contacts out in the middle east and we have been working with them to send out the aid.

“The large charities tend to focus on getting aid to the refuge camps in Turkey because aid is not officially allowed into Syria but once our shipment arrives on January 4 it will be broken down into smaller packages and taken into Syria.

“We just want to try and do as much as we can to help.”