UN and Arab officials today called for global efforts to combat the "unprecedented" destruction of heritage sites in the Middle East, accusing jihadist groups of selling stolen antiquities to fund their wars.
At the start of a two-day conference seeking ways to combat destruction of heritage sites, officials also called for better monitoring of the global trade in antiquities in order to prevent smuggling of stolen artefacts.
The Cairo conference follows an international outcry after the jihadist Islamic State group circulated a video last month showing its militants bulldozing the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq.
"The looting of archaeological sites has reached an unprecedented scale," Irina Bokova, the head of UN cultural agency UNESCO, said at the opening session of the conference at a Cairo hotel.
"This cultural cleansing is being used as a tactic to terrify people... It is a war crime."
Egypt's Antiquities Minister Mamdouh Damaty also warned that heritage sites in the region were under threat.
"The region is suffering from this challenge of direct and indirect destruction of antiquities and human heritage," Damaty said.
"There are attempts to demolish the human heritage of the region.... Be it in Iraq, Libya, Yemen or in Egypt."
Foreign affairs and antiquities officials from 11 Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, Kuwait and Sudan were among those attending the conference.
The meeting is an effort to "fight against those who are taking away from us our common history," said Deborah Lehr, the chairwoman of the Antiquities Coalition, a non-governmental group formed to fight the destruction of heritage sites.
"The world is appalled" at the destruction, she told the conference, adding that the meeting aims "to unite efforts to seek solutions to this threat".
IS, which has captured territory in Iraq and Syria, has claimed the destruction of numerous artefacts in the region, especially in Iraq.
