Irretrievable

Those of us older than touch-tone telephones probably remember the phrase "from here to Timbuktu" as representing something very very far away. Some of us even know that Timbuktu is a real place, a town in the African country of Mali which sits nearly in the middle of the bulge of the African continent. Timbuktu is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. "The city was a centre for the propagation of Islam in the 15th and 16th centuries, and features three mosques and many madrasahs." There are also about 700,000 ancient manuscripts in Timbuktu dating to Medieval times.
Unfortunately, due to a nasty civil war and terror threats, Westerners are discouraged from visiting. And now it seems, according to UNESCO, "over the weekend, fighters screaming 'Allah Akbar' descended on the cemeteries holding the remains of Timbuktu's Sufi saints, and systematically began destroying the six most famous tombs. Among the tombs they destroyed is that of Sidi Mahmoudou, a saint who died in 955."
The Islamist group, Ansar Dine, who won control of the town in a recent battle, has begun razing all shrines including the 13 designated as significant by UNESCO citing religious reasons.
Because these sites have apparently been lost to humanity forever, take a minute to visit in pictures what we have lost.