Six Ancient Comoros Medinas Join UNESCO's Heritage List
The listing recognizes preserved urban fabric and historic ties to Swahili trade, while officials say many buildings are in serious disrepair.
- On Saturday, UNESCO added six ancient Comoros medinas to the World Heritage List, marking the archipelago's first inclusion among more than 1,200 globally protected sites.
- These centuries-old medinas, once historic sultanates along Indian Ocean trading routes, feature palaces and mosques dating back to the 12th century and remain occupied today.
- Four sites sit on Grande Comore, including the 14th-century Moroni medina and the 12th-century Iconi medina, while two others are located on smaller Anjouan.
- Comoros Culture Minister Said Mohamed Ali Said called the inscription 'immense national pride,' stating, 'This listing is not a finish line but a starting point.'
- Heritage promotion office director general Ania Mohamed Issa warned that 'uncontrolled urbanisation' and modernization have altered the fragile structures, though UNESCO says they remain 'highly vulnerable, with several cases in serious disrepair.
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33 sites are nominated for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Comoros in Eastern Africa have already made it.
These six medinas, four of which are located on the island of Grande Comore and two on the island of Ndzouani, are the first sites of the Comoros to join the UNESCO World Heritage List, which has more than 1,200 cultural and natural properties.
(Busan=Yonhap News) Reporter Kim Ye-na = Comoros, an island nation in East Africa, was named to the World Heritage List for the first time at the 48th UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting held in Busan...
These state cities were built for some as early as the 12th century along the trade routes of the Indian Ocean. The Medinas include defense walls, palaces, mosques and public squares, integrated into a network of narrow alleys. "This ranking is not an finish line but a starting point", responded Said Mohamed Ali Said, the Comorian Minister of Culture, who is part of a large government delegation that made the trip to Busan, South Korea, where th…
UNESCO declares World Heritage the medinas of the historic Sultanates of Comoros
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