Africa: Conflict and Crisis Put Six World Heritage Sites At Risk

What the report says

AllAfrica, carrying a UN News Service report dated 27 July 2026, reported that UNESCO has placed six cultural and natural heritage locations on its List of World Heritage in Danger because of war, insecurity, development pressures and environmental stress. The decision was made by the World Heritage Committee during a meeting in Busan, Republic of Korea, where it granted emergency protection to three newly inscribed World Heritage sites and added three existing sites to the danger list.

The newly inscribed sites include the Mount Amel Castles in southern Lebanon, a group of five fortresses linked to Crusader, Islamic and Ottoman periods, which UNESCO said have been badly affected by the continuing conflict. Sebastia in the Occupied West Bank was also added through the emergency process; the site contains archaeological remains covering more than two millennia and is facing pressures connected to the wider Middle East conflict, development and a planned national park.

The third emergency inscription is South Sudan’s Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape, described in the report as the setting for the world’s largest known land mammal migration. UNESCO cited poaching, wildlife trafficking, infrastructure projects and ongoing insecurity as threats that are weakening conservation efforts and endangering the ecosystem, as well as a landscape associated with long-standing local herding, farming and fishing communities.

Three previously recognized sites were also added: Ukraine’s Ancient City of Tauric Chersonese and its Chora in Russian-occupied Crimea, Lebanon’s ancient city of Tyre, and Suriname’s Historic Inner City of Paramaribo. The danger list is designed to draw international assistance and technical support to places facing exceptional threats.