Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 20th Jan. UNESCO on Friday raised an alarm over reports that Sudan’s warring militaries are fighting in the vicinity of the ancient Nubian pyramids of Meroe a protected World Heritage Site.
UNESCO in a press release issued expressed deep concern over the safety of the site, raised fears that some of the priceless artifacts from the Kingdom of Kush, dating back to the eighth century B.C., could be looted and trafficked.
“This World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2011, consists of the royal city of the Kushite kings at Meroe, near the River Nile, the nearby religious site of Naqa and the temple complex Musawwarat es Sufra,” UNESCO said.
It indicated clashes between Government troops and rival SDF militia near the site, some 250 km north of the capital Khartoum, all parties must fully respect international law.
The 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict stipulates that
The agency called for vigilance on the part of law enforcement and for “art market actors and all cultural professionals to refrain from acquiring or taking part in the import, export or transfer of ownership of cultural property when they have reasonable cause to believe that the objects have been stolen, illegally alienated, clandestinely excavated or illegally exported from Sudan”.
UNESCO has mobilized to support the culture, education, science and information sectors in Sudan since April last year, when the brutal civil war erupted around Khartoum,
The agency has implemented a series of emergency measures in Sudan and beyond, in addition to invoking international law,
