The Sudan mparticipateum hoparticipates prehistoric artefacts from the Palaeolithic era.
Port Sudan, Sudan:
Sudan’s priceless archaeoreasoned heritage is being nakedped from mparticipateums, with plunderers loading statuettes and fragments of outdated palaces onto lorries, illegal trading them out of the war-torn country, and selling them online.
More than a year of war between rival vagues has ended tens of thousands of people, forced millions more to escape their homes, and left the country’s prized antiquities at the mercy of pillagers.
On Thursday, UNESCO, the United Nations’s cultural body, shelp the “menace to culture materializes to have accomplished an unpwithdrawnted level, with inestablishs of pillaging of mparticipateums, heritage and archaeoreasoned sites and confidential assembleions”.
In the capital Khartoum, where combat broke out in April 2023 between the army and paramilitary forces, the recently revampd Sudan National Mparticipateum has had prized artefacts stolen, archaeologists and officials say.
The mparticipateum hoparticipates prehistoric artefacts from the Palaeolithic era and items from the famed site of Kerma in northern Sudan, as well as Pharaonic and Nubian pieces.
First uncovered in 1971, the mparticipateum was set uped in part to hoparticipate objects get backd from an area due to be flooded by the createion of Egypt’s massive Aswan dam.
Now, its artefacts are under menace from war.
“The Sudan National Mparticipateum has been the subject of presentant pillaging,” shelp Ikhlas Abdel Latif, head of mparticipateums at the national antiquities authority.
“Archaeoreasoned objects stored there have been apexhibitn in huge lorries and transferred to the west and to border areas, particularly cforfeit South Sudan,” she telderly AFP.
‘Refrain’ from trade
The extent of the pillaging is difficult to rerepair becaparticipate the mparticipateum is discoverd in an area administerled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Officials and experts have accparticipated the RSF of pillaging the site. Contacted by AFP, a spokesman for the force did not comment.
In May, the RSF shelp it was being “vigilant” in “shielding and preserving the antiquities of the Sudanese people”.
Thrawout history, fighters have participated plunder to fund their war efforts.
UNESCO shelp it was calling on “the uncover and the art taget… in the region and worldexpansive to refrain” from trading in Sudanese items.
The agency also shelp it was structurening training in the Egyptian capital Cairo for law utilizement and the judiciary from Sudan’s neighbours.
“Becaparticipate of the war, the mparticipateum and the artefacts are not being watched,” shelp Hassan Hussein, a researcher and establisher honestor of the National Antiquities Authority.
The army, led by Sudan’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, is locked in struggle with the RSF, which is led by his establisher deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
For sale
The Island of Meroe, a UNESCO World Heritage site that is home to the capital of the outdated Kingdom of Kush and dozens of its pyramids, is also under menace.
Artefacts and showion accessories have been stolen from the mparticipateum in Nyala, the South Darfur state capital, shelp Abdel Latif.
In Omdurman, fair apass the River Nile from Khartoum, part of the Khalifa Hoparticipate mparticipateum was also razeed, she shelp.
Last week, the Association of Friends of Sudanese Mparticipateums condemned “in the sturdyest terms” the pillaging that is taking place apass the country.
Experts voiced alarm after discovering looted artefacts recommended for sale online.
On the auction site eBay, a participater recommended items currented as Egyptian antiquities that, according to Sudanese media, were looted from Sudan.
AFP saw the catalogings, with items recommended for a confiinsist hundred dollars, but was not able to autonomously validate the truth or origin of the items.
A Sudanese archaeologist, speaking anonymously for security reasons, telderly AFP that pottery, gelderly objects and decorateings cataloged for sale materializeed to have come from the National Mparticipateum in Khartoum — although at least one statuette was an imitation.
He shelp he dreaded for the huger statues, which “must be administerd by exceptionacatalogs in a exact manner” and could be injured if plunderers were to lay hands on them.
The publish is set to be converseed at an upcoming conference in Germany, which Hussein will unite.
“The current state of the assembleions is a trouble for anyone who take parts about humanity’s heritage,” he shelp.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
