The City of Essaouira, a Witness to Morocco's Diversity and Plurality of its Cultures that Make up its Richness

Essaouira - The city of Essaouira, where HM King Mohammed VI, Commander of the Faithful, visited, on Wednesday, "Bayt Dakira", in the old medina, is a witness to the diversity of Morocco and the plurality of its cultures that make up its wealth, said Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay.

Through the Sovereign's visit to "Bayt Dakira", this spiritual and patrimonial space of preservation and enhancement of the Judeo-Moroccan memory, Morocco sends today from Essaouira a very strong message that shows that the Kingdom claims its diversity and the plurality of all its cultures that make up its wealth, said Azoulay in a statement to the press on this occasion.

Essaouira is a world city, endowed with a plural history and which has also been recognized in many ways by the international community through UNESCO, with its heritage, its medina which has been classified as a World Heritage Site, or even more recently the entry into the intangible heritage of the Gnawa culture, with its music, its rites, its meaning, its maalems and zaouiyas, which have given it this formidable recognition, she said.

The Director-General of UNESCO also praised the recognition of Essaouira's modernity and creativity, as the city has also recently joined UNESCO's Creative Cities network, noting that all this plurality of origins, diversity and artistic confrontation also carries the city into the future.