UNESCO Warns Against the Looting and Trafficking of Artifacts from Sudan

UNESCO has called on the art market to refrain from buying artifacts from Sudan following reports of the looting of museums in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, amid the ongoing civil war.

In a statement published today, UNESCO, the United Nations entity tasked with safeguarding world heritage, warned the public and art market against participating in the import or export of works linked to Sudan, as the “illegal sale or displacement of these cultural items would result in the disappearance of part of the Sudanese cultural identity and jeopardize the country’s recovery.”

UNESCO added that that it is “particularly concerned” by reports of looting at the National Museum of Sudan, where restoration projects coordinated by UNESCO with Italian funding have been in-progress since 2019.  

The report also cited allegations that other collections, “bearing testimony of Sudan’s significant history”, were stolen from the Khalifa House Museum and Nyala Museum.

UNESCO has vowed “to step up its action” to organize training in Cairo, Egypt, for members of law enforcement and the judiciary of Sudan’s bordering countries on methods to identify and prevent attempts at trafficking. Through satellite imagery, the group is reportedly also conducting risk and damage assessment of the Sudanese World Heritage site Jebel Barkal, a large outcrop of rock north of Khartoum linked to ancient religious practice, among other sites.

Additionally, cultural workers displaced by the conflict have been provided a temporary center in Port Sudan to purse their arts and network with others in their field.

Earlier this month, the SBC, Sudan’s national broadcaster, reported that Sudan’s National Museum was targeted by “a large-scale looting and smuggling operation” by members of the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and that artifacts from its holdings had been transported outside the nation’s southern border. 

The RSF has repeatedly denied accusations of looting, stating at the start of the conflict in April 2023 that its members were simply safeguarding cultural Khartoum. That statement was later challenged by the Middle East Eye, which in June 2023 published footage of RSF fighters raiding the M Bolheim Bioarchaeology Laboratory in Khartoum, where human remains dating to ancient Nubia (2500 BCE to 1500 BCE) were studied and exhibited.

Sudan’s cultural heritage has been imperiled since the power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) deteriorate into civil war. In the subsequent months, the war has resulted in the mass displacement of nearly 25 million Sudanese civilians and famine. On April 26, Sara Abdalla Khidir Saeed, director of the Sudan Natural History Museum, announced that local museums “are now without guard or censorship to protect them from looting and vandalism.”

That summer, the nonprofit Heritage for Peace published its findings on the state of Sudan’s cultural heritage. The organizations determined that several cultural archives have been lost, including those managed by the Mohamed Omer Bashir Centre for Sudanese Studies at Omdurman Ahlia University and the Abdul Karim Mirghani Center, the last of which stewards the material history of local labor movements.

The Performing Arts Theatre in el Geneina was also burned down, and both the Sultan Bahruddin Museum and the National History Museum in Khartoum reported the loss of their collections to bombing.