Priceless Artifacts Taken From Sudan Museums Under Cover of War

(Bloomberg) -- Armed groups waging a civil war in Sudan are suspected to have looted priceless artifacts from a museum that houses much of the North African nation’s rich cultural heritage.

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Fighters have taken away boxes of ancient statues, vases and other items from the National Museum in the capital, Khartoum, over the past year, according to senior museum staff. UNESCO said it’s “deeply concerned” about the reports of looting and damage of several museums in Sudan.

“In recent weeks, this threat to culture appears to have reached an unprecedented level, with reports of looting of museums, heritage and archaeological sites and private collections,” the United Nations agency said in a statement on Thursday. “The organization calls on the international community to do its utmost to protect Sudan’s heritage from destruction and illicit trafficking.”

Conflict has raged in Sudan since last April and as many as 150,000 people have died, according to US estimates. More than 10 million others have been displaced, with many fleeing into Chad, South Sudan and Egypt. There’s a risk of Sudan’s neighbors being drawn into the conflict, either directly or through the backing of proxy forces, which would have potentially grave implications for regional security.

Several attempts to broker a cease-fire between the army and rival Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group have failed. Fighters have been accused of raiding the country’s vast natural resources — from gold to gum arabic that’s a key component in sodas and cosmetics — to fund their campaigns.

In one recent incident, armed RSF members removed three truckloads of artifacts, said Ikhlas Abdellatif and Shadia Abdrabo, the National Museum’s director and senior curator respectively. Interpol and UNESCO are providing investigative support to the museum to document the crimes, according to Abdellatif.

The RSF emerged out of the janjaweed militias that committed the Darfur genocide two decades ago. Nazar Sid Ahmed, a member of the group’s negotiating team, denied that it was involved in looting.

“Anyone who wants to make sure of the museum’s property” remaining in place can do so, he said. “We are ready to take them to see it on the ground.”

Aiman Badri, an officer at UNESCO’s Sudan office, confirmed that the agency is working closely with the museum and local partners to try and locate missing items. Claims that artifacts had been taken and posted for sale online and in neighboring countries are “credible,” he said.

The museum was undergoing renovation prior to the war, so many items that were usually on display had been packed into boxes, according to Abdrabo, who fled Sudan for France when the fighting erupted. She said she had received testimony, videos and pictures from contacts in Sudan showing that funeral statuettes dating back to the Napatan period between 700 and 300 BC had been looted.

Bloomberg saw one such video, but couldn’t verify where it was shot.

One of the museum officials’ sources, who works with the RSF and declined to be identified because of fears for their safety, confirmed that some artifacts that appeared in a video he took had been looted.

Among the museum’s vast collection are a gold-gilted statuette of a Kushite king, vases dating as far back as the third century AD and paintings from the medieval Nubia period that were found inside the Faras Cathedral.

The museum contained artifacts dating from pre-historic times to the early 19th century and it’s unclear how many of them had been taken, said Tomomi Fuahiya, an assistant professor at the Polish Center of Mediterranean Archeology at the University of Warsaw and member of the Sudan Heritage Protection Initiative at the University of Birmingham.

“Culturally it’s the best collection in the country,” she said.

Artifacts have also been stolen from the Darfur Museum in the southwestern town of Nyala and the Sheikan Museum in El Obeid in the south, Abdrabo said. Archives containing thousands of documents were also taken from the Omdurman Ahlia University, while others were destroyed in a fire last year.

Heritage for Peace, an organization dedicated to preserving national patrimony during wartime, has appealed to both warring parties to protect Sudan’s heritage, prevent illicit exports of cultural property and stop illegal digging at archaeological sites.

Sudanese state media outlets reported that more than 200 researchers had petitioned South Sudanese President Salva Kiir to recover Sudanese artifacts that had been brought to his country for sale.

--With assistance from Paul Richardson and Michael Gunn.

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