Sudan recovers 570 artefacts stolen during its civil war
Sudan’s government announced on January 13th the recovery of 570 ancient artefacts that were looted during the ongoing Sudan war, making significant progress in safeguarding Sudan’s cultural heritage and historical identity, according to Xinhua News.
After the UAE-backed paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured the capital city of Khartoum in April 2023, Sudan’s National Museum was looted, and many precious artefacts, including ones dating back thousands of years from the Kingdom of Kush, were lost.
The undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture, Information and Tourism, who spoke at a conference in Port Sudan, called the recovery “a major national achievement.” He said that the artefacts recovered ranged from prehistoric to modern times.
Sudan has been working with UNESCO and Interpol to recover stolen artefacts since April 2025, which authorities say have been smuggled abroad through two neighbouring countries. The UNESCO representative in Sudan said the recovery effort is a model of international cooperation in protecting cultural heritage during armed conflicts.
The Museums looted and damaged during the Sudan war include the National Museum overlooking the Blue Nile in Khartoum, the Presidential Palace Museum, the Armed Forces Museum, the Khalifa House Museum, the Ethnographic Museum, the Natural History Museum at the University of Khartoum, and the Sultan Ali Dinar Museum in El Fasher, North Darfur.
The National Museum pre-war had over half a million artefacts, covering 7000 years of Africa’s rich cultural history. Officials had said that one of the worst losses is of the Museum’s famed “gold room”, which had solid-gold ceremonial objects, figurines and jewellery.
The Museum was stripped bare by the RSF in 2025, with many fortified rooms broken and damaged, and its contents stolen. This has deeply affected many Sudanese people, who felt outraged and humiliated at the actions. UNESCO had warned art dealers not to sell stolen artefacts from Sudan.
The RSF have been accused of violating many international laws, including conducted ethnically motivated attacks that the UN has previously warned may amount to genocide. A Sudanese official in 2025 said that the looting of museums was “the obliteration of identity and the erasure of Sudan’s history,” with archaeologists describing RSF’s attack on the museums as a “historical catastrophe by all measures.”
Xinhua, The Guardian, Sudan Tribune, Maghrebi.org
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