At a donor conference in Brussels on Monday evening, the international community pledged seven billion euros to Turkey and Syria for the victims of the earthquakes six weeks ago. President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced this afterwards, reports news agency Reuters.
The bulk of the amount will go to Turkey, which was hit hardest by the disaster. EUR 950 million is earmarked for humanitarian aid in Syria. During the conference, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said via video link that the damage in his country is estimated at 104 billion euros.
The Syrian regime did not attend the meeting because the EU has no relationship with Syrian President Assad. The EU does provide humanitarian aid and money will be collected for the country again in June, according to Von der Leyen.
Erdogan said Turkey plans to build 319,000 homes in the coming year. “It is not possible for any country to tackle a crisis of this magnitude alone,” he said. “We will never forget the solidarity shown by all our friends in these difficult days.”
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Millions of homeless people
The earthquakes in Turkey and Syria killed more than 50,000 people and thousands are still missing. More than three million people were left homeless. The earthquakes of February 6 are the deadliest natural disaster to hit Turkey since the 1939 quake, which killed 30,000 people.