The National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum was looted by the paramilitary militia of the “Rapid Support Forces” (RSF) at war since April 2023 against the Sudanese army, reports a Sudanese media outlet. The museum is located in a large building on the banks of the Nile, near the central bank in central Khartoum, in an area controlled by the RSF militia where very heavy fighting took place in April 2023. “looting and smuggling operations” and some of the pieces from the collections have been trafficked outside the nation’s southern borders, a Sudanese television channel claims. Satellite images confirmed that a truck was transporting items from the museums earlier this year. The museum did not report the stolen items, but the channel confirmed that the artifacts had been seen on an online auction.
The museum suffered destructions on two elements of the ancient Egyptian temple of Buhen and on a wall of the ancient Egyptian temple of Aksha. The National Museum of Sudan (1971) is one of the oldest museums in the country, it has archaeological collections (sculptures, pottery, wall paintings) from the Stone Age to the Islamic period and very old mummies from 2500 BC.
The FSR militias have been accused of looting since the beginning of the war in 2023. However, the FSR denies the accusations of looting, maintaining that it is fulfilling its mission of “safeguarding the cultural assets of the capital”. The media Middle East Eye released footage of militia fighters attacking the M. Bolheim bio-archaeology laboratory in Khartoum where human skeletons from 3300-3000 BC were kept.
Since May 2023, the National Museum of Sudan staff has been blocked from accessing the building due to fighting in the area and police forces have withdrawn, leaving the museum unprotected. Museums in the Khartoum region “now have no guards to protect them from looting and vandalism” Sara Abdalla Khidir Saeed said in a statement. The NGO “Heritage for Peace” indicates that many cultural archives have been lost in museums, archives and libraries. At the Mohamed Omer Bashir Center for Sudanese Studies at Ahlia University in Omdurman, archives that are being digitized on the history of local labor movements have been destroyed. Other museums and art centers have suffered destruction and looting: the Abdul Karim Mirghani Center and the Sultan Bahruddin Museum. The El Geneina Performing Arts Theater was burned down.
Archaeological sites have not been spared: acts of vandalism, destruction at the archaeological site of Naqa and at Musawwarat Sufra, now surrounded by military camps. UNESCO has confirmed the damage to the heritage of museums and cultural centres, indicating that it is closely monitoring the exactions.
Sudanese heritage consists of a variety of ancestral cultural and historical sites due to the different civilizations that inhabited the territory: Pharaonic Egypt, Christian kingdoms and Islamic civilizations. According to the Jordan Timesthe attack on cultural heritage would be more than collateral damage of war: it would be an attempt to erase national history and heritage.
The FSR, supported by the United Arab Emirates, went to war in April 2023 against the SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces) for political and economic reasons mixed with ethnic conflicts. The civil war has displaced 8 million people and put 25 million people at risk of famine. The FSR, made up of Sudanese and Arab militiamen, is accused by Human Rights Watch of genocide against the Massalit community in the Darfur region.
Heritage for Peace highlighted the challenges of obtaining and verifying information on the condition of cultural sites due to population displacement. An initiative to protect Sudanese heritage was launched in May 2023. The National Society of Antiquities and Museums of Sudan (NCAM) and the Internal Center for the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property have proposed prevention strategies, including the evacuation of objects even if fighting continues.
