Urgent action needed to save ancient homes in historic Old City of Sanaa
A Unesco affiliate called for urgent action to save ancient homes in the Old City of Sanaa after more than 100 were damaged by heavy rains in Yemen this year.
“We are pained when we see another of our old Arab cities losing part of its original historical features,” said Sheikha Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, chairwoman of the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage.
“We call on all those concerned with the world human heritage to take urgent action in order to save the Yemeni community in Sanaa and its cultural and urban fabric,” Sheikha Mai said, the Bahrain News Agency reported.
Unesco listed Sanaa’s Old City as a World Heritage Site in 1986 and placed it on its World Heritage in Danger list in 2015.
This year’s rains, which began in the middle of April and usually last into early September,
have been exceptionally heavy, adding to what the UN describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis caused by years of war.
Sanaa resident Adel Sanani told Reuters he saw five houses severely damaged at the weekend. “The families have no shelter,” he said.
“A local bank launched a campaign to distribute plastic sheeting to act as roofs.”
Mohammed Al Talhi’s house partially collapsed on Friday as heavy rain battered Sanaa, leaving him and his family – including six women and six children – homeless.
“Everything we had is buried,” he said.
Aqeel Nassar, deputy head of the Historic Cities Preservation Authority, said about 5,000 of the tallest buildings in the Old City had leaky roofs and in 107 of them the roofs had partially collapsed.
The authority has been working with Unesco and other funding providers to preserve some of the buildings.
Residents no longer maintain the structures, leading to cracks and weakness, Mr Nassar said.
Houses in the Old City date from before the 11th century.
Unesco describes the area as “an extraordinary density of rammed earth and burnt brick towers rising several stories above stone-built ground floors, strikingly decorated with geometric patterns of fired bricks and white gypsum”.
The Iran-backed Houthis, who have controlled Sanaa since pushing out the government of Abdrabu Mansur Hadi in late 2014, appealed this week to Unesco to save the city’s heritage.
The rebels said the bad weather in recent weeks had caused the partial or complete collapse of 111 houses.