The European Commission and the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) are organizing a donor conference on Monday to collect donations and coordinate the response to the areas of Syria and Turkey affected by the February earthquake.
On February 6 of this year, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale and the aftershocks that followed devastated entire regions of Syria and Turkey.
According to the information available on the official website of the Commission, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Prime Minister of Sweden, Ulf Kristersson, are organizing a conference in Brussels (Belgium).
“The objective of the donor conference is to collect donations and coordinate the aid response to the affected areas in both countries,” says the information provided by Brussels, adding that the conference will be organized together with the Turkish authorities.
The conference will be open to all EU member states, as well as “neighboring countries”, the United Nations, “financial institutions and other relevant actors”.
In the aftermath of this disaster, at least 50,000 people died.
According to the United Nations, the World Bank, Brussels and the Turkish government itself, the reconstruction of the affected areas will cost approximately 94,000 million euros.
The United Nations estimates that more than 8 million people in Syria need urgent assistance, including 4.1 million people in opposition-held areas in the north of the country and four million people in government-controlled areas.
Since the tragedy, 2.7 million people have been forced to leave their homes because they were destroyed or badly damaged.
Source: TSF
