Report: ESCWA Moving Offices to Coral Beach to Evade Security Threats

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The United Nations is considering moving the offices of its headquarters in Beirut to the Coral Beach Hotel as it has previously done in 2007, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Thursday.

“The offices will be relocated in a timeframe no longer than two weeks,” the daily said.

It noted that the Coral Beach is spotted as the safest Hotel according to a security study.

“The U.N. has moved part of its offices to the (Coral Beach) Hotel in 2007 over security fears,” the newspaper said.

U.N. General-Secretary Ban Ki-Moon insists on immediately relocating the ESCWA offices to a “safer place.”

Earlier this month, executive secretary of ESCWA Rima Khalaf declared that the U.N. is considering moving its headquarters to another building in Beirut until the construction of a new building in Dbayeh.

The roads near the U.N. building in downtown Beirut were closed and traffic was directed to nearby streets at the end of September after reports that the premises could be targeted in an attack similar to an August bombing of the U.N. headquarters in the Nigerian capital Abuja.