The mayor of Ghadames Municipality has renewed his call for UNESCO to remove the old city of Ghadames from the list of threatened sites.
Qasim Al-Manea of Ghadames was addressing an audience at the second international scientific conference held in the city on Friday.
The conference was held under the supervision of the Ghadames Center for Research, Studies, and Heritage Documentation, with the participation of an array of researchers from various Libyan and international universities.
The event was an opportunity to highlight the rich history of Ghadames across the ages and the countless antiquities it contains, making it one of the oldest historical cities in the Arab region and the Middle East. Al-Manea praised the role of the Research Center in this regard.
UNESCO decided to include Ghadames among the sites in danger on the World Heritage List, due to the effects of the armed conflict that occurred in 2011 and beyond.
Last July, the Libyan ambassador to UNESCO, Hafez Al-Welda, demanded that the city be removed from the list, during a speech at the 44th session of the World Heritage Committee of the organization.
"The armed conflict did not have a direct impact on the old city of Ghadames, although it suffered limited and indirect effects, such as not obtaining sufficient funding to carry out repair and maintenance work," Al-Welda said.
He noted that the collapses that occurred in some houses in 2017 and 2019 were due to heavy rains and not neglect, emphasizing that the Libyan authorities are making efforts to protect the city.