Dozens in Paris protest ISIL presence in Syria’s Palmyra
Dozens of demonstrators have gathered in the French capital, Paris, to express solidarity with Syrian people and to protest against ISIL Takfiri militants’ activities in the country’s historic city of Palmyra.
The gathering in Paris comes a day after Syria’s Antiquities Director Mamoun Abdulkarim said during a press conference that ISIL militants had entered the museum in Palmyra.
Abdulkarim added that the militants had set up guards at the doors of the museum.
The Syrian official, however, said authorities had already transferred most of the museum’s artifacts to the capital, Damascus. There have not been any reports of damage to antiquities in the building yet.
Earlier in the day, Syrian state television reported that ISIL militants have killed some 400 civilians, mostly women and children, in Palmyra.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has warned that ISIL’s demolition of the world heritage site would be an "enormous loss to humanity."
In April, the terrorists released a video showing ISIL members destroying artifacts at neighboring Iraq’s ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud before blowing up a part of the site. In February, the terrorists smashed ancient statues at the Ninawa museum in Mosul, using sledgehammers and drills.
The people of Syria have been witnessing a deadly crisis since March 2011. The violence fueled by Takfiri groups has so far claimed the lives of over 222,000 people, according to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over 7.2 million people have been internally displaced, and more than three million have been forced to flee the country.
The militants currently control large areas of Syria and Iraq.
SZH/HMV/SS
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