The international community should assist Syria with the reconstruction of the country's war-town infrastructure, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told Sputnik in an interview
DAMASCUS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th November, 2020) The international community should assist Syria with the reconstruction of the country's war-town infrastructure, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told Sputnik in an interview.
"We have agreed that it is mandatory that after terrorism has destroyed a large part of the infrastructure in Syria, that the international community provides a large degree of assistance to reconstruct this infrastructure," Mekdad said.
The statement was made on the sidelines of the International Conference on the Return of Refugees, held in Damascus on 11 and 12 November. Participant at the conference discussed, among other things, the reconstruction effort that would enable the country to receive the approximately 5.6 million refugees currently spread across several neighboring countries, namely Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey.
"A refugee cannot return without hospitals, schools, houses, roads, means of transportation, and without food," Mekdad continued, adding that Western nations should collectively bear responsibility for supporting a wave of "terrorism that destroyed Syria."
According to UN reports, around 50 percent of the war-torn Arab republic's infrastructure was destroyed, while one in three residential homes sustained damage as a direct result of hostilities. The overall cost of material destruction has been estimated at $120 billion.
