Some conflicts rightly capture significant media attention, while others quietly slip into the shadows. Their images don’t dominate newspaper front pages or Western social media homepages, making them almost invisible to our privileged eyes, despite unfolding just beyond the Mediterranean. This is the case with the war in North Sudan, which erupted in April 2023. By November 2025, the United Nations reported the death toll had surpassed 150,000, leading to open discussions of genocide.
As often happens with such extensive and humanly destructive conflicts, Sudan has also suffered immense losses to its cultural heritage. Over 60% of the collections at the National Museum of Sudan, for instance, are reported to have been plundered. This figure, released by NBC News, highlights a deeper fracture: a nation’s ability to recognize itself through its own history. Following the capture of the capital, Khartoum, by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who oppose the regular Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), thousands of artifacts were stolen from the museum’s storage facilities.
Sudan: The War’s Impact on Museums
“Over 60% of the museum’s artifacts have been looted,” stated Ghalia Jar Al-Nabi, Director of the General Authority for Antiquities and Museums. She specifically highlighted the theft of gold and jewelry belonging to the kings of Napata and Meroë, noting that the imposing statue of Apademak, a deity of the Meroitic Empire (which reigned between 300 BC and 350 AD), was likely too heavy to move.
Even in 2024, tens of thousands of items were reported missing from a collection of approximately 150,000, but today’s estimates suggest an even more widespread and systematic depletion rather than episodic losses. The theft appears targeted, driven by the economic value and ease of transport of objects: gold, jewelry, and small artifacts were removed, while many more fragile or less commercially appealing items, such as ceramics, were left behind in storage.
In an interview with Hyperallergic, Geoff Emberling, an associate research scientist at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan, confirmed that “ceramic vessels, which constitute some of the most beautiful and important evidence of ancient Sudanese civilization, were largely left in place, while gold and jewelry were entirely removed [from the museum’s storerooms].” Some looted artifacts have even appeared on online platforms, offered for prices absurdly low compared to their historical value. For example, three statues depicting a man, a woman, and a child on a single base were listed on eBay for $200, an advertisement later removed but reported by Sudan Tribune.
Last November, the Criminal Investigation Department of the Nile State also arrested a group of ten foreigners attempting to smuggle rare artifacts stolen directly from the Sudan National Museum. Around the same time, investigators announced the seizure of other stolen artifacts from the Nyala Museum, which had been hidden for a period in a factory in Atbara and, in some cases, concealed in a private residence.
Within this broader context, the National Museum represents only the most visible case. In various other areas of the country, museums and cultural sites have suffered even more radical damage. The aforementioned Nyala Museum in South Darfur was looted and subsequently destroyed, while historical monuments at the museum and Sultan Ali Dinar palace in El Fasher were bombed by the RSF, causing significant fire damage to the palace and the destruction of its contents and furnishings. Experts fear that monuments and large statues may be tampered with and destroyed in attempts to move, transport, or dismantle them for sale. UNESCO has confirmed that ten museums and cultural centers in Sudan have been subjected to looting, theft, and vandalism since the war began.
Attempts at Reconstruction
Following the army’s recapture of the capital, small groups of cultural workers began operating under precarious conditions to secure what remained. In addition to directing archaeological research on ancient Kush at the Jebel Barkal plateau, Geoff Emberling co-leads the Sudan Cultural Emergency Recovery Fund, a fundraising task force recruited by Sudan’s National Corporation of Antiquities and Museums (NCAM), through which he directly interfaces with the field team at the National Museum.
Emberling clarified that prior to the war’s outbreak in April 2023, the National Museum’s exhibition halls were largely empty as the museum was undergoing renovation. “There’s a group of about 15 people on site who are taking care of cleaning, emergency repairs, documenting the damage, and trying to plan the restoration of everything that can be saved,” Emberling explained, adding that electricity and water services are gradually being restored in the area. “The fact that they remained in the country and committed to protecting and preserving the sites and museums, when some of them would have had the opportunity to flee with their families, is an act of courage, but it is also an act of love and care for their heritage.”
Alongside material interventions, the equally crucial work of digitizing and cataloging Sudan’s cultural heritage objects, historical documents, and artifacts is underway. Some projects aim to maintain at least a record of the collections through digital archives, making images, data, and cataloging accessible. Among these is the Sudan Virtual Museum, launched in January through a collaboration between NCAM and the French Archaeological Unit for Sudanese Antiquities, offering a virtual tour of the National Museum. Concurrently, researchers are working to create databases of stolen objects, with the goal of facilitating their recognition and eventual recovery.
The War’s Context
The Sudanese conflict has its roots in the fragile political transition following the fall of Omar al-Bashir’s regime in 2019. The definitive breakdown on April 15, 2023, marked the eruption of a civil war between the Khartoum-based army (SAF) and the rebel militia known as the Rapid Support Force (RSF). This transformed an internal power struggle into a large-scale war, characterized by indiscriminate bombings and systematic violence against the civilian population, alongside increasing territorial fragmentation.
According to the United Nations, the crisis has generated one of the most severe contemporary humanitarian emergencies: estimates, now outdated, put the death toll at 150,000, rendering the figure tragically unreliable. Millions are internally displaced, widespread famine persists, and there is an almost complete collapse of health and administrative infrastructures.
Sudan’s strategic role, due to its access to the Red Sea and proximity to the Suez Canal, has naturally triggered geopolitical interests involving various Gulf countries, from the UAE to Saudi Arabia, as well as Turkey. During the first Trump presidency, the United States officially included the country in the Abraham Accords. While the United Arab Emirates and General Haftar, commander of the armed forces of eastern Libya, openly support the RSF rebels, Egypt and Saudi Arabia side with Khartoum, providing both parties with backing that fuels the conflict.
