2023-07-21 18:55:03
Russian strikes in Odessa: Unesco “strongly condemns” an attack on World Heritage
L’Unesco a “strongly condemned” on Friday the Russian strikes carried out “early thursday morning” on the city center of Odessa, in the south-west of Ukraine.
“According to a preliminary assessment, several museums located within the World Heritage site suffered damage, including the Archaeological Museum, the Fleet Museum and the Literature Museum of Odessa”detailed the UN organization for culture, science and education.
“All had been marked by Unesco and the local authorities with the Blue Shield, the distinctive emblem of the 1954 Hague Convention” for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict, which was therefore “raped”denounced Unesco.
The Russian attack “Perpetrated just two weeks following the one that destroyed a building” of the historic center of Lviv, in the northwest of the country, another World Heritage site, has also “coincided with the destruction of the Cultural Center of Folk Art and Art Education in the city of Mykolaiv”regretted the UN institution.
She called to “cease all attacks once morest cultural property protected under widely ratified international normative instruments”.
The historic center of Odessa, a famous city on the shores of the Black Sea, was inscribed on the UNESCO list of World Heritage in Danger in January 2023, due to the “threats of destruction” hovering over the site because of the war, all the more at risk as it is close to the port, a strategic infrastructure for Ukraine.
“This war poses a growing threat to Ukrainian culture”insisted Unesco, adding that it had identified “damage to 270 Ukrainian cultural sites” since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.
Tensions have flared in southwestern Ukraine since Moscow rejected this week the deal on Ukrainian grain exports to the Black Sea, which allowed cargo ships loaded with agricultural products to leave Ukrainian ports through protected sea lanes.
During the night from Thursday to Friday, Russian Kalibr cruise missiles, fired from the Black Sea, hit the region for the fourth consecutive night, local governor Oleh Kiper said.
If the Russian army assured to target only military sites, at least three people died and twenty others were injured last night.
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