MISS Lancashire has spoken of her harrowing trip to the border of Syria and Turkey to help desperate families.

Aysha Khan, aged 20, from Witton, Blackburn, saw first-hand the struggles of the wounded, disabled and orphans living in the harshest conditions.

She took part in a six-day relief mission to Turkey with SKT Welfare, after raising just over £2,000 to help families trapped at the border.

Miss Khan, a student who was crowned Miss Lancashire in January, said: “Visiting the sick and wounded was the hardest part for me. Many of them had to eventually return to Syria, to nothing - just to die.

“A seven-year-old boy with a burnt off eye told me that he had been watching TV and playing when a bomb hit his house. His parents didn’t survive it.

“We don’t realise how privileged we are even to have roads. Nobody needs to come here to help us, we have everything.”

Miss Khan helped pack, distribute and deliver food boxes to villages, hospitals and an orphanage.

The charity says the conflict in Syria has left more than 13 million people in need of humanitarian support and, despite the bleakness of their situation, Miss Khan says she was touched by the human spirit of the Syrian refugees she met.

She said: “Children greeted us with smiles on their faces and mothers gave us tea, even though they hardly had anything.

“One man held a food ticket with both hands, smiling. I just broke down, it really got to me. In the camps, it was worse. They had nothing, just tents but nothing else.

“Women were boiling grass to feed their children. There were dents in the mud where they slept and they still had the biggest smiles on their faces.

The team also visited children at the Springs Hope Orphanage, which SKT Welfare built and volunteers spent time playing and talking with the children.

Many of the Syrians Miss Khan met were in desperate need of operations to heal their wounds. But, with no way of getting to countries that could help and only staying in Turkey temporarily, they were forced to helplessly return to Syria.

SKT Welfare is a charity organisation which fundraises to help people in countries including Turkey, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who are living in poverty or who have fled wars.

Miss Khan has also started a campaign called Unite Against Racism, where she will promote the message that our true nationality is mankind.

For more information, visit sktwelfare.org