Cave paintings at a UNESCO world heritage site in Chad have been defaced by unknown vandals, the central African nation's culture minister told AFP on Sunday.
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| Manda Guéli Cave in the Ennedi Mountains, northeastern Chad [Credit: David Stanley/WikiCommons] |
"We discovered inscriptions left by some visitors. They wrote on top of the cave paintings," said the minister Mahamat Saleh Haroun, also a Chadian filmmaker.
The natural and cultural landscape of the Ennedi Massif was declared a world heritage last year by the UN cultural agency UNESCO.
The writing consists of "some names" of visitors and the last messages date from January of this year, said Haroun who has seen photos of the damage.
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| Camels at a waterhole in a canyon in Ennedi [Credit: Desertman/WikiCommons] |
"Thousands of images have been painted and carved into the rock surface of caves, canyons and shelters, presenting one of the largest ensembles of rock art in the Sahara," UNESCO says on its website about the Ennedi Massif.
When taking over the culture ministry in February, Haroun had said one of his objectives was to draw more attention to Chad's tourist sites.
As a filmmaker, Haroun made headlines in 2010 when he became the first Chadian to enter and win an award at the Cannes Film Festival's main competition with "A Screaming Man".
Source: AFP [March 21, 2017]