EU executive offers 1 bln euros to help rebuild Turkey from devastating earthquake

The EU executive will give 1 billion euros ($1.07 bln) to help reconstruction in Turkey, the head of the European Commission said on Monday in launching an international conference to drum up support following a devastating earthquake there last month.

Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said the earthquake killed nearly 50,000 people in Turkey and the neighboring Syria, the largest natural disaster in the region in years.

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“Millions are now homeless and living in tents as the winter drags on,” she told at the start of the conference.

“We need to mobilize for reconstruction. Homes and schools and hospitals must be rebuilt, with the highest standards of seismic safety. Water and sanitation and other critical infrastructure must be repaired. Public services and businesses need capital to re-start, so that people can earn a living.”

She said the Commission would spend a further 108 million euros on humanitarian assistance and early recovery in Syria, where the European Union does not have diplomatic ties with President Bashar al-Assad over a war that had started in 2011.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimated “total financial burden of the earthquake disaster” for Turkeyat some $103.6 billion and said that amounted to 9 percent of the country’s GDP forecast for 2023.

Read more: UN aid chief says Turkey-Syria earthquake is region’s ‘worst event’ in a century