UNESCO Adds Odessa, Ukraine, to List of World Heritage in Danger
The city, which sits along Ukraine’s southern coast, will now receive reinforced technical and financial international assistance.
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The Ukrainian city of Odessa has been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List and inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
The city, which sits along Ukraine’s southern coast, will now receive reinforced technical and financial international assistance after being designated as in danger, according to UNESCO. Ukraine can request this assistance to help protect property and even help with its rehabilitation.
Odessa joins several other sites and cities in Ukraine that are inscribed on the World Heritage List.
“Odesa, a free city, a world city, a legendary port that has left its mark on cinema, literature and the arts, is thus placed under the reinforced protection of the international community,” UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said in a statement. “While the war continues, this inscription embodies our collective determination to ensure that this city, which has always surmounted global upheavals, is preserved from further destruction.”
The inscription of the city’s historic center on the list was accelerated due to the war, which broke out when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky officially submitted the city for consideration in October 2022.
In addition to Odessa, UNESCO added landmarks from Yemen and Lebanon to its List of World Heritage in Danger.
In Yemen, the landmarks of the Ancient Kingdom of Saba, Marib, was added to the list. The property contains seven archaeological sites “that bear witness to the rich Kingdom of Saba and its architectural, aesthetic and technological achievements from the 1st millennium BCE to the arrival of Islam around 630 CE.”
And in Lebanon, the Rachid Karameh International Fair of Tripoli was added to the list. The building, which was designed by a Brazilian architect in 1962, was inscribed “due to its alarming state of conservation, the lack of financial resources for its maintenance, and the latent risk of development proposals that could affect the integrity of the complex.”
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