Alwaght- The U.N. conservation agency UNESCO has slammed a Saudi-led airstrike that destroyed at least four historic buildings in a section of Yemen's capital dating back to before the 11th century Friday.
At least six people died in the early-morning raid in Sanaa, according to Yemen's state news agency Saba.
Saudi jet fighters hit the capital's Old City, which has been inhabited for more than 2,500 years. Sana’s dense rammed earth and burnt brick towers, strikingly decorated, are famous around the world and are an integral part of Yemen’s identity and pride.
The U.N. conservation agency UNESCO criticized the action, which it said turned a "magnificent complex of traditional houses" into ruins in the ancient and densely-populated Al Qasimi neighborhood.
"I am profoundly distressed by the loss of human lives as well as by the damage inflicted on one of the world's oldest jewels of Islamic urban landscape," UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova said in a statement. "I am shocked by the images of these magnificent many-storied tower-houses and serene gardens reduced to rubble."
According to UNESCO, there are 103 mosques and over 6,000 houses in the Old City that were built before the 11th century. It is "defined by an extraordinary density of rammed earth and burnt brick towers," the U.N. agency said.
Sanaa's old city, situated in a mountain valley, was a major centre for the propagation of Islam. It was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1986.
The multi-storey houses rising above stone ground floors were built of rammed earth and burnt brick. Each building is decorated with geometric patterns of fired bricks and white gypsum, inspired by traditional Islamic art.
Earlier this month, UNESCO condemned May 31 Saudi air strikes that hit the ancient Great Dam of Marib, which was first built in the 8th century BC, in the city that was once the capital of the kingdom of Saba.
The UN body said the attack on the dam came a week after the national museum in Dhamar, in central Yemen, was "completely destroyed".