Islamist rebels torch Timbuktu manuscript library: mayor

h/t Bear

Yahoo News

DAKAR (Reuters) – Islamist fighters fleeing Mali’s ancient Saharan city of Timbuktu as French and Malian troops closed in set fire to a South African-funded library there containing thousands of priceless manuscripts, the city’s mayor said on Monday.

“The rebels sit fire to the newly-constructed Ahmed Baba Institute built by the South Africans … this happened four days ago,” Halle Ousmane told Reuters by telephone from Bamako. He said he had received the information from his chief of communications who had travelled south from the city a day ago.

Ousmane was not able to immediately say how much the building had been damaged. French and Malian troops were securing the city on Monday.

The mayor said the Islamist rebels, who had occupied the fabled trading town since a Tuareg-led rebellion captured it on April 1 from government forces, also torched his office and the home of a member of parliament.

The Ahmed Baba Institute, one of several libraries and collections in the city containing fragile ancient documents dating back to the 13th century, is named after a Timbuktu-born contemporary of William Shakespeare and houses more than 20,000 scholarly manuscripts. Some were stored in underground vaults.

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About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

5 Replies to “Islamist rebels torch Timbuktu manuscript library: mayor”

  1. What next? The Louvre, The Smithsonian, The British Library?

    Well, only a matter of time Guys, for the demented slaves of allah will get around to any or all of them sooner rather than later unless we man-up, tool-up and commence the regretably essential vermin removal project as a matter of urgency.

    Seneca III

  2. It is only because of the vestigial remnants of classical civilization that we even know of the libraries at Alexandria. Makes one wonder how much history Muslims have destroyed that is irretrievably lost. Thousands of Hindu temples and probably hundreds of Hindu sects for openers I would guess.

  3. Don’t forget the priceless manuscripts that were burn when Byzantium fell.

    This is why no historical artifact should be left in a Moslem country.