Yemen and Lebanon sites added to Unesco world heritage list

Yemen and Lebanon sites added to Unesco world heritage list

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN). It seeks to build peace through international cooperation in Education, the Sciences and Culture.

It is also a member of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group (UNSDG), a coalition of UN agencies and organizations aimed at fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

UNESCO’s Headquarters are located in Paris and the Organization has more than 50 field offices around the world.

It has 193 Members and 11 Associate Members (As of April 2020) and is governed by the General Conference and the Executive Board.

Three UNESCO member states are not UN members: Cook Islands, Niue, and Palestine.

While three UN member states (Israel, Liechtenstein, United States) are not UNESCO members.

CAIRO: An ancient Yemeni kingdom and a Lebanese modernist concrete fair park were added Wednesday to Unesco's list of World Heritage sites in danger, the latest entries from The Middle East.

The seven major landmarks of the Ancient Yemenite Kingdom

of Saba and the Rachid Karami International Fair in Tripoli were inscribed on the UN agency list in ''an emergency procedure,'' in hopes of better preserving the neglected sites. 

Now added, both sites will have access to enhanced technical and financial assistance, Unesco said.

The pre-Islamic Yemeni kingdom of Saba, 

which once stretched from Sanaa to Marib, now lies on one of the major front lines dividing Houthi rebels from Saudi coalition forces. 

The threat of destruction from the ongoing conflict was cited as the key reason to add the seven landmarks that include several ancient temples, a dam and the ruins of old Marib.

Yemen's ruinous conflict 

began in 2014 when Iranian-backed rebels swept down from the mountain and occupied the capital, Sanaa, along with much of Northern Yemen, ousting the internationally recognized government. 

A Saudi-led coalition - armed with US and UK weaponry and intelligence - entered the war on the side of Yemen's exiled government in March 2015.

A barrage of Saudi-led airstrikes

has destroyed historic mud homes in Northern Saada, the historic Houthi heartlands, and damaged much of the over 2,500-year-old Old City in the center of Sanaa, also a Unesco World Heritage site. 

In 2015, airstrikes partially destroyed a section of the Great Marib Dam, near the Awwam Temple, one of the seven landmarks.

Lebanon's modernist Rachid Karami International Fair 

was designed during the 1960s as part of a wider policy to modernize the country.

 Funding shortages continually interrupted construction before the half-built site was eventually abandoned following the outbreak of civil war in the mid-1970s.

In recent years, the 70-hectare (173-acre) site, headed by a boomerang-shaped concert hall, has caught the attention of several developers. Unesco said it added the site following concerns over its ''state of conservation'' and fears that a new renovation could undermine the ''integrity of the complex.″

Since 2019, Lebanon has been embroiled in an economic crisis, with the currency having lost over 90% of its value since then. The financial crisis has plunged three-quarters of the population into poverty, with millions struggling to cope with some of the world's sharpest inflation

Source TOI