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Radio France Internationale
Radio France Internationale
World
Melissa Chemam with RFI

Netherlands agrees to return 119 Benin statues to Nigeria

Some 113 Benin Bronzes are to be returned to Nigeria from the Wereldmuseum (World Museum) in Leiden, Netherlands, here on 19 February 2025. AFP - FREEK VAN DEN BERGH

The Netherlands has agreed to return 119 Benin bronze statues to Nigeria, the Dutch embassy in Abuja announced this week. It becomes the first European nation to do so after Germany. The majority of these 19th-century African sculptures, however, remain in France and the UK.

Nigeria is on a quest to repatriate thousands of intricate bronze sculptures and castings that were looted by British soldiers during a raid on the then-separate Kingdom of Benin, located in what is now southwestern Nigeria, in 1897.

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