Museums looted of priceless artifacts as Sudan counts the cost of a deadly conflict

In the Darfur region, three museums suffered complete destruction and looting during the first months of the conflict. The Nyala Museum was robbed of its antiquities and destroyed, followed by the looting and destruction of the Al-Geneina Museum and the destruction of the Sultan Ali Dinar Museum building in El Fasher. The same fate, Al-Nabi added, befell the Gezira Museum in Wad Madani following the RSF’s invasion of Gezira state.

There is no resolution in sight for the conflict in Sudan, with peace still distant amid worsening conditions for the millions trapped in the country. “From the ground, the situation is not getting any better, and we continue to be very concerned by the deteriorating humanitarian situation,” U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric warned last month.

Looting a nation’s history

Once containing more than 150,000 artifacts representing various historical periods in Sudan, from the Stone Age until the arrival of Islam, the Sudan National Museum now lies mostly bare.

“Reports during the first months of war indicated trucks moving from the museum loaded with looted artifacts,” Al-Nabi added. Priceless Sudanese artifacts were put up for sale on eBay after being smuggled out of the country, according to a report from the French news agency Agence France-Presse. UNESCO has expressed alarm over the illicit trafficking of goods from Sudan, warning that threats to culture have reached an “unprecedented level.”

A recovery committee has retrieved 570 pieces taken from museums and heritage sites, but thousands of valuable items remain missing, said Graham Abdel Qader, undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and Information. The National Museum suffered the worst damage, he said, with its exhibition halls and concrete rooms looted of approximately 8,000 pieces.

“The looted artifacts are not merely inanimate objects, but represent a people’s history and a nation’s entity, reflecting cultural identity and embodying the national memory that unites peoples and preserves the cohesion of their cultural and social fabric,” Al-Nabi said.

Archaeological sites under siege

Ikhlas Abdel Latif, head of the looted antiquities recovery committee and an official at the Sudan Antiquities and Museums Authority, said that Naqa and Musawwarat es Sufra in northern Sudan, both World Heritage Sites containing artifacts from the Meroitic civilization, were at risk as the conflict rages.

“We feared for these sites,” Abdel Latif said, expressing fears that they could lose their World Heritage status.

The war also meant maintenance was halted at heritage sites, he said, along with security and archaeological missions. The massive displacement of people has created further pressures as some have sought temporary shelter inside archeological sites, with some instances of vandalism and graffiti on temple walls. Some have even begun constructing homes there, claiming ancestral land rights.

“We suffered greatly from these actions,” Abdel Latif said.