Timbuktu heritage sites under threat

• A minaret in Timbuktu. © 2012 Guardian News

"Islamists armed with Kalashnikovs and pick-axes have destroyed the centuries-old mausoleums of saints in the Unesco-listed city of Timbuktu in front of shocked locals, witnesses say.

The attack by the al-Qaida-linked Ansar Dine group came days after Unesco placed Timbuktu on its list of heritage sites in danger and will recall the 2001 dynamiting by the Taliban of two sixth-century statues of Buddha carved into a cliff in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan." - By: The Guardian

More recent news about the attacks on Mali heritage can be found on this BBC website

ETA 03/07/12: Opinion by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO on this CNN website.