Yemeni antiquities in the city of Ma’rib have been subjected on Wednesday to an act of sabotage by extremists in the ranks of the Saudi-led coalition forces and terrorist elements.
Local residents in Ma’rib province said that saboteurs belonging to extremist Salafist groups in the ranks of the coalition, broke a number of inscriptions in the historic Awwam temple, south of Ma’rib city.
The residents called on the de facto authorities in Ma’rib province and the coalition forces to carry out their duties in protecting the ancient monuments of Yemen from sabotage by groups they described as “enemies of the country.”
This comes after two weeks of reported Emirati looting of antiquities across the occupied city of Ma’rib.
Journalist Anis Mansour, a former advisor to the coalition-backed government’s embassy in Riyadh, revealed, in a tweet on Twitter on May 10, the smuggling of ancient slabs bearing inscriptions in Musnad script that were looted from the Awwam temple by the UAE occupation forces.
The Temple of Awwam is an ancient religious structure built around the year 1500 BCE in the realm known as Sheba, known in Jewish, Christian and Islamic texts from the legendary Queen of Sheba and her visit to the Hebrew king and Prophet Solomon.
