How millennia of history vanished in Sudan's war
Published on: Sunday 31 August 2025
In the scorched courtyard of Sudan's National Museum in Khartoum, a towering black granite statue of Kush Pharaoh Taharqa now stands alone, surrounded by shards of broken glass and shattered stone.Since the museum was looted in the early days of Sudan's war between the army and paramilitaries in April 2023, thousands of priceless antiquities, many dating back to the 3,000-year-old Kingdom of Kush, have vanished.Officials believe that some have been smuggled across borders into Egypt, Chad and South Sudan, but there is no trace of the vast majority of the pieces.