New images reveal extent of looting at Sudan’s national museum as rooms stripped of treasures

Looting and destruction of the Sudan National Museum by RSF paramilitaries. The scale of the damage to the museum and the country’s heritage has been felt deeply by Sudanese. A curator called it an ‘immense tragedy.’ Photograph: Courtesy of Sudanese National Corporation for Antiquities

Videos of Sudan’s national museum showing empty rooms, piles of rubble and broken artefacts posted on social media after the Sudanese army recaptured the area from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in recent days show the extent of looting of the country’s antiquities.

Fears of looting in the museum were first raised in June 2023 and a year later satellite images emerged of trucks loaded with artefacts leaving the building, according to museum officials. But last week, as the RSF were driven out of Khartoum after two years of war, the full extent of the theft became apparent.