Zabid to stay on UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger

Not nearly enough of these ancient walls have been left standing in the historic town of Zabid.

The World Heritage Committee 2007, which met last month in Christchurch, New Zealand, has decided to keep the historic town of Zabid on the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger for two more years. After that, the town will again come up for review by UNESCO. In the meantime, the government of Yemen should examine the city regularly. These government reports shall be reviewed by the World Heritage Committee on a yearly basis.  The committee shall consider the possibility of eventual deletion of the property from the World Heritage List at its 33rd session in 2009.

The List of World Heritage in Danger is designed to inform the international community of conditions that threaten the very characteristics for which a property was inscribed on the World Heritage List, and to encourage corrective action. The outstanding archaeological and historical heritage of Zabid has seriously deteriorated in recent years.  Indeed, 40 percent of its original homes have been replaced with concrete buildings. In 2000, at the request of the State Party, the Historic Town of Zabid was inscribed on the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger.  UNESCO is helping the local authorities to develop an urban conservation plan and to adopt a strategic approach for the preservation of this World Heritage site.

Other sites in danger include the Iranian city of Bam and the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan. The ancient citadel and surrounding cultural landscape of the Iranian city of Bam, where 26,000 people lost their lives in the earthquake of December 2003, was simultaneously inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List and on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2004. Important international efforts are mobilized to salvage the cultural heritage of this devastated city.  The cultural landscape of Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan was inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2003 simultaneously with its inscription on the World Heritage List.

The property is in a fragile state of conservation considering that it has suffered from abandonment, military action and dynamite explosions. Parts of the site are inaccessible due to the presence of antipersonnel mines.   The World Heritage Committee urged Yemen’s government to take into account the urgent implementation of the action plan for the first year that formed by the World Heritage Center, said Abdulmalik Ali Azzan, Director General of public relations and international cooperation of the General Organization to Preserve Historic Cities in Yemen. Yemen’s government has already started some projects to preserve the city, said Abdulmalik Ali Azzan. There is the new project to make use of the rainwater in the city of Zabid.  

The WHC has demanded that an adequate legal and institutional framework be set up in one year. It also would like a cabinet decree reissued to stop and remove all construction work and updating of the city. It also wants the government to provide the General   GOPHCY in Sana’a and Zabid should also receive an adequate budget to stabilize the degradation of the World Heritage property. It also asked for the completion of heritage protection laws and the completion of the draft Conservation Plan, with translation into Arabic and provision of short versions for wide dissemination.  

Mohammed al-Qadasi, general secretary of the National Committee of UNESCO, says that it is a very serious problem for Zabid to be threatened with deletion from the World Heritage List, and that this issue needs immediate discussion.  “The problem was finally discussed by the decision makers in Yemen, like the head of GOPHCY and Minister of Culture, who tried to transfer it to the cabinet. The Yemeni government should implement the conditions demanded by UNESCO to preserve the historic city of Zabid among the World Heritage List.”

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