The war in Sudan has seen the looting of the country’s museums. Heritage boss Ikhlas Abdel Latief speaks about the losses.
In September, amid the ongoing war in Sudan , reports began to surface of the looting of the Sudan National Museum in the capital, Khartoum . The museum is internationally celebrated for the breadth of its collection. It illustrates powerful and unique African kingdoms from the ancient and medieval past in a world stretching from the sands of the Sahara to the grasslands of the Sahel.
Read more: Looting of the Sudan National Museum – more is at stake than priceless ancient treasures The reported looting is in violation of international law, which considers museums protected spaces in times of war. This is a status even non-state actors like the RSF are technically supposed to respect.
Aware of this possibility, the United Nations has condemned the looting. It has urged all parties to respect cultural heritage, while calling on the art market to boycott the buying and selling of Sudan’s cultural heritage.Concerned with the limited attention that has been given to this event in wider western media, we sat down with Dr Ikhlas Abdel Latief, Sudan’s director of Museums for the National Corporation of Antiquities and Museums, in Cairo, Egypt.
How does the theft make you feel as a museum expert? The news came as a tremendous shock to me. I was overcome with profound sadness for the loss of our national identity through what the museum displays of an ancient civilisation and proud history – a story narrated through these curated exhibits and collections.
What groups of objects would suffer the most in transport or from poor handling? The majority of the statues, known as funerary statues, are produced from fragile materials and all of them have been stolen. These items are definitely at risk of breaking if not handled by experts.
African Museums Ancient World Archaeology Hague Convention Khartoum Kush Looted Artefacts Looting Nubia Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Sudan Sudan Conflict Sudan War UNESCO Looted Art
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