Sudan’s civil war has devastated the country’s cultural heritage, effectively wiping out centuries of valuable relics.
The conflict has left around 10 million people displaced and an estimated 150,000 killed.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces’ two-year occupation of Khartoum has also seen 4,000 items looted from the Sudan National Museum, including mummies dating from 2,500 BC. Museums and ancient palaces in Darfur and El Geneina were destroyed or emptied.
Officials say truckloads of antiquities were driven from the capital in 2023 — RSF members filmed themselves opening crates of mummified remains — and estimate total losses at $110 million. “They tried to erase our history,” one official told Le Monde.