Cyrene is one of Libya’s five UNESCO World Heritage sites: places that are considered to have special cultural or physical importance. UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The sites also include the ruins of the Roman city of Leptis Magna and Sabratha, a site famous for its amphitheater. There are also prehistoric rock cuttings in the Akakous mountains in the southern Sahara Desert, near Libya’s border with Algeria. But since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, insecurity and looting have harmed many of these areas. Tourists once walked to Cyrene, a city founded by Greeks and later expanded by Romans. It is in the mountains around 200 kilometers east of Benghazi, within the small community of Shahat. But today, foreign tourists no longer visit Cyrene. Only Libyan families come to its sites. Some locals have taken the land for themselves. Others have written graffiti on the ancient city’s structures and walls.
