Two entire freight trailers, which have been filled with aid supplies donated from the island’s community, will be going to help support refugees from the war in Ukraine.

The group Manx Support Refugees made a Facebook post on Sunday, and spokesperson for the group said that attention for it had ‘spiralled’.

More than one million people are reported to have already fled the Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

Local delivery company Island Express had originally agreed to provide a single van to the Manx Support Refugees to transport the supplies to the UK.

It did the same back in 2015, during the Syrian refugee crisis, when a van was taken to Calais in France to provide supplies.

However, by Wednesday it became clear that one van would not be enough, and now the Steam Packet will be transporting the two freight trailers free of charge.

The supplies will be passed on to the Polish Society in the UK, which is coordinating shipments of aid from across the country.

These included large amounts of bottled water, clothes delivered from local companies, and a bulk donation of nappies from Agrimark.

Richard Quayle, managing director of Island Express, thanked Manx Support Refugees ‘for getting the ball rolling’.

‘We’ve been overwhelmed by the generosity of the Manx people and we’re only too pleased to do whatever we can to help in these uncertain times,’ he added.

Island Express also thanked the Steam Packet for the free shipping, and Express Parcel Services in Manchester ‘for their help and assistance in the delivery of the donations to the distribution centre in Liverpool’.

The spokesperson from Manx Support Refugees added that the group was ‘overwhelmed with generosity’.

They explained that for now there would be no further collections, because of the fact that UK charities had received such an unexpected volume of donations, and that they now needed to focus on getting those across to the Ukrainian border first.

Charity the One World Centre will however be holding street collections around the island this weekend in aid of the Disaster Emergency Committee’s Ukraine appeal.

Volunteers will be in Douglas, Ramsey, Peel, Castletown and Port Erin on Saturday and Sunday.