World Bank to allocate Turkey $1Bln for post-earthquake reconstruction

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
28 Jun 2023 18:25

The money will be reportedly used to rebuild housing and basic utilities in the affected areas.

People stand by a building destroyed in a recent earthquake in Aleppo, Syria, Monday, Feb. 27, 2023 (AP)

Turkish media reported Wednesday that the World Bank has greenlighted $1 billion in financial aid for post-reconstruction work in the country's southeastern regions that were affected by the earthquake earlier this year.

On February 5, two powerful earthquakes of magnitudes 7.7 and 7.6 struck the region bordering Turkey and Syria, resulting in the deaths of over 50,000 people and causing millions to be displaced.

According to the Star newspaper, the money will be used to rebuild housing and basic utilities in the affected areas.

In May, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the government would commission the first batch of new homes for earthquake victims in October or November 2023.

As for updates regarding the situation of quake victims in Syria, a Palestinian-British academician, Makram Khoury-Machool, in addition to several British-Arab citizens, filed an application on June 22 to the High Court in England seeking permission to proceed to a Judicial Review following the refusal of the UK Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development, James Cleverly, to lift the "cruel and unnecessary sanctions imposed on the Syrian Arab Republic for the last 11 years."

In a press release, the activists acknowledged that the sanctions have added to the suffering of innocent civilians in Syria following the devastating earthquake of February 2023. At the time, several Western countries mobilized rapidly to send aid and rescue workers to Turkey but excluded Syria, leaving it to its own fate.

Due to the war that weakened the infrastructure in Syria, the draconian Western sanctions imposed on the country, the US occupation of some Syrian land, as well as the looting of billions of dollars of its resources, Syria was unable to fully respond to the tragic catastrophe. As a result, the number of victims of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake rose dramatically.