Appeal for Bamiyan Buddha replicas

A Buddhist organisation in Sri Lanka has called for public donations to build replicas of the two giant Buddha statues recently destroyed by the Taleban authorities in Afghanistan.

The group, the Maha Bodhi Society, says it will start with a scaled-down replica of the larger statue, which was carved into a cliff near the Afghan town of Bamiyan more than fifteen-hundred years ago.

The BBC Colombo correspondent says Sri Lankans, most of whom are Buddhists, want to be at the forefront of efforts to protect the international Buddhist heritage. Our correspondent says the Sri Lankan government has been negotiating with Afghanistan's neighbour, Pakistan, to buy any remaining Buddha statues and prevent the Taleban from destroying them.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service