Over Half of the Sudan National Museum’s Holdings Looted Within Two Years

Over Half of the Sudan National Museum’s Holdings Looted Within Two Years

During the stretch of time in which the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces group occupied Sudan—April 15, 2023 until early 2025—theSudan National Museum’s contents were lost to theft amidst the civil war, NBC News reportedlast week. Over 60 percent of the museum’s holdings were looted, according to Ghalia Jar Al-Nabi, director of the General Authority for Antiquities and Museums.

In particular, Al-Nabi said, thieves were drawn toward jewels and gold that belonged to the ancient civilizations of Napata and Meroe. Overall, the museum’s collection which once held 150,000 artifacts attributed to periods of Sudanese history as far back as the Stone Age has now been left desolate. Some of the stolen artifacts were listed for saleon eBay.

“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 told the outlet. 

Completed in 1971, the two-story Sudan National Museum and its surrounding gardens are located in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. Before being definitively plundered, the museum was home to the most comprehensive Nubian archaeological collection in the world. 

The damage done to the North African country’s records of cultural heritage could be horribly destructive and irreversible, warned a call for solidarity released in 2023 by the International Council of Museums.  

“When we learned about the looting, we didn’t sleep for three or four days,” a National Museum official told The Guardian in 2024. “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.”