HATAY, Turkey

The United Nations on Tuesday dispatched 19 truckloads of humanitarian aid to the civil war-torn Syrian province of Idlib.

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

The aid will be distributed to those in need in Idlib and its rural areas.

Turkey and Russia agreed last September to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone where acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

The Syrian regime and its allies, however, have consistently broken the terms of the cease-fire, launching frequent attacks inside the de-escalation zone.

The de-escalation zone is currently inhabited by about 4 million civilians, including hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the regime forces from their cities and towns throughout the war-weary country over recent years.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad 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.