UNESCO condemns bombing of ‘historic building’ in Lviv

PARIS, July 6, 2023 (AFP) – UNESCO on Thursday condemned the bombing of a historic building in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv and expressed “its sincere condolences” to the families of five victims.

“This attack, the first to take place in an area protected by the World Heritage Convention since the outbreak of the war on 24 February 2022, is a violation of this Convention,” the UN cultural agency said.

UNESCO added that the Russian strike also violated “the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.”

Russian missiles killed five people in the historic city of Lviv early Thursday, in what its mayor said was the biggest attack on civilian infrastructure on Lviv since the start of the Russian invasion in February, 2022.

TOPSHOT – This handout picture taken and released by the Ukrainian Emergency Service in Lviv on July 6, 2023 shows a rescuer working in an apartment building partially destroyed by a missile strike, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A missile that hit an apartment block in Ukraine’s Lviv killed four people on July 6, in what its mayor said was the biggest attack on civilian infrastructure in the city since the start of the Russian invasion. (Photo by Handout / UKRAINIAN EMERGENCY SERVICE / AFP)

UNESCO said the historic building hit by the strike was located in “the buffer zone of the World Heritage Site of ‘Lviv – the Ensemble of the Historic Centre’.”

The organisation “expresses its sincere condolences to the families of the five victims.”

While Russia regularly pounds Ukraine with missiles, artillery and drones, the Lviv region in the west, hundreds of kilometres from the frontlines and near the Polish border, has largely been spared the aerial onslaughts.