Secretary-General Outraged by Continued Destruction of Iraqi Cultural Sites, Calls for Swift International Action to Hold Perpetrators Accountable

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

The Secretary-General is outraged by the continuing destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq by ISIL [Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant], amid reports of the razing of the ancient city of Hatra, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in the north of the country.

The Secretary-General urgently calls on the international community to swiftly put a stop to such heinous terrorist activity and to counter the illicit traffic in cultural artefacts, as demanded by Security Council resolutions 2170 (2014) and 2199 (2015).

The Secretary-General reiterates that the deliberate destruction of our common cultural heritage constitutes a war crime and that the perpetrators must be held to account.