VOLUNTEERS on board a lorry full of aid funded and filled by Daily Echo readers have begun delivering supplies to refugees following a gruelling journey across Europe.
Charity workers from Hampshire's Hope and Aid Direct set off last Saturday, April 12, on the 3,500-mile round trip to Serbia as part of a convoy of 14 trucks carrying vital supplies.
It was made possible thanks to generous readers who donated spare foreign currency in our green buckets placed on shop counters across the county, which was converted into cash to pay for the fuel.
Food, bedding, toys and toiletries are now being handed out to people who fled their homes in the Kosovo province of Yugo-slavia in 1999 following the outbreak of war.
The situation is still so fragile that they may never be able to return to their homes.
Volunteer Bernard Sullivan contacted the Daily Echo from Serbia to say the Hampshire lorry cleared customs in the middle of the week and shortly afterwards began delivering supplies to a hospital.
A baptist centre is the next destination before a visit to a centre housing 50 refugee families in the city of Leskovac.
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