GERMANY-UNESCO UNESCO condemns damage to world heritage sites

Record ID: 149111

  • Title: GERMANY-UNESCO UNESCO condemns damage to world heritage sites
  • Date: 30th June 2015
  • Summary: BONN, GERMANY (JUNE 30, 2015) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF FORMER BUNDESTAG (GERMAN PARLIAMENT) BUILDING WHERE SESSION IS BEING HELD WIDE OF SESSION IN PROGRESS
  • Embargoed: 15th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAEXZ4V36RUQ5F02I0LGEE6F5F0
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The United Nations cultural agency UNESCO on Tuesday (June 30) condemned the damaging and destruction of cultural heritage sites in Iraq and Syria during a conference in the German city of Bonn.
    Nada al Hassan from the organisation's world heritage secretariat for Arab countries told the meeting "the current situation of areas occupied by army groups illustrates the serious damages to human beings, to the people of Iraq and means that the cultural heritage in these areas is seriously threatened."
    "Among the four world heritage sites in Iraq, Hadar and Ashur suffered destruction while the archaeological site of Samarra was affected by acts of vandalism, in particular the site's symbol, the spiral minaret from the ninth century, Al-Malwiyah."
    In March, Iraq urged a U.S.-led military coalition to use air power to protect the country's antiquities from Islamic State fighters looting and destroying some of the world's greatest archaeological treasures.
    Archaeologists have compared the assault on Iraq's cultural history to the Taliban's destruction of the Bamyan Buddhas in 2001. But the damage wreaked by Islamic State in Iraq, where agriculture and writing were pioneered by ancient Mesopotamian civilisations, may have been more devastating.
    Maria Boehmer, the chairperson of UNESCO's world heritage committee and a junior minister in Germany's foreign ministry, said "we stand up and make it known that we are unwilling to accept terrorism and destruction."
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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