BAGHDAD: With Baghdad’s legendary Book Street recently renovated, the United Nations culture chief pledged strong support Monday for rebuilding Iraq, which has a rich legacy of conflict. has been destroyed.
Years of war and insurgency have damaged many Mesopotamian, Islamic and Christian treasures in the country, home to six UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Iraq is the cradle of civilizations, where writing and the first cities emerged, but decades of unrest have damaged or destroyed many priceless cultural treasures.
“It is culture, education, that has been deliberately destroyed, attacked in a country with thousands of years of history,” Audrey Azoulay, director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, told AFP.
He spoke during a tour of Al-Mutanabi Street, which has long drawn bibliography and is named after the famous 10th-century poet Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabi.
Azoulay’s mission to France, a former culture minister, comes ahead of the 20th anniversary of the US-led invasion later this month that toppled Saddam Hussein. The bloodiest period in Iraqi history.
Antiquities have been widely looted, often by organized crime groups, and many treasures were stolen from the National Museum in the capital, Baghdad.
A decade later, more damage was done during the brutal rise of the Islamic State (IS) group and the war to oust it, which destroyed large areas of the northern city of Mosul.
Even Al-Mutanbi Street, the center of intellectual life with its cafes and books, could not escape the pain. In March 2007, a suicide car bombing killed 30 people and injured 60.
Among the dead were the sons of the owner of the Shabandar Cafe, with whom Azoulay was sitting on Monday, along with Iraqi Culture Minister Ahmed Faq al-Badarani.
‘Like Nowhere Else’
“This The heartbreak of warThe IS takeover has deeply wounded Iraqi society,” said Azouli.
“Because of this, UNESCO is committed to mobilizing the international community and working directly on the ground.”
Since 2018, the agency has raised more than $150 million for projects in Iraq, mostly rebuilding Mosul. IS seized the city as its stronghold before being pushed out in 2017, but the fight to retake it has reduced the Old City to rubble.
Among those destroyed is the 12th-century Leaning Tower, known as Al-Huddaba, which is part of it. UNESCO’s restoration effort.
“I’m here to restore that cultural identity, to help rebuild Iraq, not just the walls, the heritage like we’re doing in Mosul, but all this intangible heritage, this wealth associated with education. , to find out how the damage was done. A lot,” Azoulay said.
She is scheduled to visit Mosul on Tuesday.
Azoulay also stopped at the national museum whose reopening, he told reporters, was a sign of hope and “allows many Iraqi families to reconnect with this long history”.
But a reminder of the country’s many challenges came when the power went out at the end of his briefing, as is often the case in a country with a dilapidated power grid.
UNESCO has also designated natural heritage sites in Iraq, including the southern marshland fed by the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.
Extensive wetlands have been severely threatened by drainage and climate change and the construction of upstream dams under Saddam’s regime.
Because of its rivers and water sources, “this country was very fertile,” said Azoulay, who met with President Abdul Latif Rashid and Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani.
He said he proposed a UNESCO mission to Iraqi officials to see how it could help with water management.