UNESCO Mission reports on war damage to cultural heritage in Lebanon

Experts* sent to Lebanon by UNESCO to assess the state of the country's cultural heritage sites have called for urgent measures to clean up the oil spill from the World Heritage edifices along the Byblos shore line. However, they found that major components of Lebanon's cultural heritage had been spared by the recent conflict. The experts' findings were presented at a press conference at UNESCO this morning by the Organization's Assistant Director-General for Culture, Françoise Rivière, and Mounir Bouchenaki, Director-General of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), who led the mission, 10 - 15 September.

Despite the limited extent of war damage to cultural heritage, the mission found several areas that require attention to safeguard and revitalize that heritage.