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About 1,000 archeological pieces were stolen from the National Museum of Baghdad during the US-led war to Iraq, less than 60,000 as originally supposed, said Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Koichiro Matsuura on Monday.
During an official visit to Portugal, Matsuura pointed out that the "number of missing objects is far inferior" to previous figures.
He said that UN experts working in Baghdad reported to the UNESCO that many of the missing pieces "are in a safe place."
The UN specialized agency sent four experts last Saturday, who are from the United States, Japan and Britain, to Baghdad on a three-day mission to assess the loss of Iraqi archeological wealth.During days after the US capture of the Iraqi capital on April 9, numerous antiques and artifacts were looted from the museums in Iraq and were supposedly being smuggled abroad.
Matsuura met on Monday with Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Durao Barroso. He also talked with Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio and Portugal's Science and Higher Education Minister PedroLynce de Faria during his visit.
(Xinhua News Agency May 20, 2003)
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