Author: Alex Nanijanian

A devastating hailstorm hit the city of Gyumri in Armenia in mid-July, followed by floods that caused substantial damage to housing and infrastructure. In response, the European Union is providing €80,000 in humanitarian funding to assist the most affected people, the EU Delegation to Armenia reports. 

This EU funding supports the Red Cross in delivering much needed relief aid, including cash assistance to help the most vulnerable cover their immediate basic needs such as food and hygiene items; vouchers for clothes; and the distribution of mattresses, pillows, blankets and bed linen.

The humanitarian aid will directly benefit 2,670 individuals whose belongings and houses were severely damaged or destroyed by the hailstorm and subsequent floods. The funding is part of the EU's overall contribution to the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

On 13 July 2020, a heavy hailstorm hit Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city. Whilst the country has repeatedly faced hailstorms in the past, the most recent one was unprecedented in its scale and impact on the urban area. About 1,000 households were affected, out of which 600 (2,670 persons) still live in container-housing that was built as ‘temporary shelters’ following a devastating earthquake in 1988. These households are considered critically vulnerable and require immediate humanitarian assistance.

The UN's cultural agency UNESCO said it deeply regretted Turkey's decision to turn the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul from a museum into a mosque, lamenting there had been no prior dialogue on the status of the former Byzantine cathedral.

UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay "deeply regrets the decision of the Turkish authorities, taken without prior dialogue, to modify the status of the Hagia Sophia," the UN agency said in a statement,
It added that she had expressed her concern to the Turkish ambassador to the body.
The Hagia Sophia was first a cathedral, then made into mosque after the conquest of Istanbul by the Ottomans, but then a secular museum for all in modern Turkey.

It is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site as part of an area of the city designated as "Historic Areas of Istanbul."

UNESCO warned that the move risked harming the universal nature of Hagia Sophia as a place open to all of civilisation, a key aspect of its World Heritage status.

It said that any modification requires prior notification to UNESCO and possibly examination by its World Heritage Committee, which adds – and sometimes removes – sites from the coveted list of UNESCO World Heritage.

"This decision announced today raises the issue of the impact of this change of status on the property's universal value," said UNESCO.

It warned that the "state of conservation" of the Hagia Sophia would be examined by the World Heritage Committee at its next meeting.

"UNESCO calls upon the Turkish authorities to initiate dialogue without delay, in order to prevent any detrimental effect on the universal value of this exceptional heritage," the statement said.