Tens of thousands of artefacts looted from Sudan museum, says official

Tens of thousands of artefacts have been looted from a Sudanese museum regarded as one of the most important in Africa, an official at the institution has said.

The official at the National Museum in Khartoum said satellite images taken last year showed trucks loaded with artefacts leaving the museum and heading for Sudan’s borders, including that with South Sudan.

The official, who asked to remain anonymous, did not attribute blame for the looting. Earlier this month, Sudan’s national broadcaster reported that the museum had been targeted by “a large-scale looting and smuggling operation”.

The museum is located in an area controlled by the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group battling the regular army in Sudan’s civil war. The RSF has been approached for comment. It has previously denied that its fighters have looted institutions.

The National Museum is regarded by experts as one of the most important such institutions in Africa. Its collection of more than 100,000 items includes embalmed mummies dating from 2,500BC, making them among the oldest and archaeologically most important in the world, as well as statues, pottery and ancient murals, with artefacts from the stone age through to the Christian and Islamic eras.

Looting has also been reported at two other major Sudanese museums: Khalifa House in the city of Omdurman and the Nyala museum in South Darfur state.

“When we learned about the looting, we didn’t sleep for three or four days,” the National Museum official said. “These artefacts are our identity, the identity of the Sudanese people. Can you imagine what it feels like to lose your identity? You lose your existence in this world.”

The official said that attempts were being made to talk to regional governments about returning the works. “Under normal circumstances it’s not even allowed to move the artefacts from one place to another inside the museum unless police are present,” they said.

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Dr Julien Cooper, an archaeologist with Macquarie University in Sydney, told Australia’s ABC radio : “The museum has a huge collection of artefacts from across history, time and culture. It’s something we should really treasure.

“No one is really sure about the objects that have gone missing,” added Cooper, an egyptologist and Sudan specialist who has spent time at the museum. “Because the museum has been in the fog of war since the conflict started, it’s been very difficult to get reports on what’s been happening inside.”

In June last year a video clip circulated on social media that appeared to show fighters from the RSF entering the bioarchaeology lab of the National Museum and opening storage containers containing mummies and other remains. The RSF have denied anything was stolen.

Staff had been forced to abandon the site shortly after fighting erupted between the RSF and the army in April last year. Thousands of people have been killed since the war began, 8 million have been displaced internally, and a further 2 million have fled to neighbouring countries.