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Special SICA Disaster Summit Ends

San Salvador, Oct 26. -Central American presidents or their representatives wound up a special summit in San Salvador on Tuesday to agree on joint actions to face devastation caused by the latest tropical depression.

In a press conference at the end of the summit, President Mauricio Funes announced that participants agreed to convene a consultative group of the international community for December 16 with the purpose to seek funds from donor countries and world bodies for reconstruction, and to raise awareness among them about the magnitude of the disaster in the region.

He said participants in the summit agreed to adopt regional measures needed to carry out reconstruction works.

"We need to build a regional strategy, but also to carry out a process of rehabilitation and reconstruction under new parameters, so that what we reconstruct today is not damaged later, as has happened in previous climate phenomena, said Funes.

He said work will be also carried out for agricultural recovery as a way to guarantee peopleâ�Ös food security.

Funes said that participants in the summit highlighted the importance of a new approach to climate change and the problems it is generating in the region.

"As Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom said, it is not possible that others are the ones responsible for major CO2 (greenhouse) emissions, and we continue suffering death and destruction," noted Funes.

The special summit was attended by the presidents of the Central American Integration System (SICA), Laura Chinchilla (Costa Rica), Alvaro Colom (Guatemala), Porfirio Lobo (Honduras) and host Mauricio Funes, as well as Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Samuel Santos.

Belize and Panama were represented by their ambassadors, as was the Dominican Republic, an associate state of SICA. (Prensa Latina)