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Massive cannabis plantation found at UNESCO World Heritage site in southeast Turkey
Massive cannabis plantation found at UNESCO World Heritage site in southeast Turkey
A massive plantation of cannabis was seized in a police operation on June 18 at Hevsel Gardens in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakır, a site on UNESCO’s World Heritage list. Click through for the story in photos...
More than 200 policemen, accompanied by drones and Special Forces teams, launched the security operation early on June 18.
At the site the police found dozens of cannabis plants, some of whose height exceeds three meters, Doğan News Agency reported.
The cannabis roots were so large and strong that the police had to call in slabbing gangs to remove them.
The roots were destroyed at the scene and police took samples for analysis.
The Diyarbakır Fortress and the city’s Hevsel Gardens were inaugurated into UNESCO’s World Heritage list during the 39th session of the Committee, held in the German city of Bonn in July 2015.
The site was chosen by a unanimous vote of 20 delegates after a Diyarbakir presentation of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).
Located on an escarpment of the Upper Tigris River Basin, which is part of the so-called “Fertile Crescent,” the fortified city of Diyarbakır and the surrounding landscape has been an important center since the Hellenistic period, through the Roman, Sassanid, Byzantine, Islamic and Ottoman times to the present, the UNESCO website states. The site encompasses the Amida Mound, known as İçkale (inner castle), the 5.8 km-long city walls of Diyarbakir with their numerous towers, gates, buttresses, and 63 inscriptions from different periods, as well as Hevsel Gardens, a green link between the city and the Tigris that supplies the city with food and water.
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