KHARTOUM — The Sudan National Museum lost almost two-thirds of its inventory, comprising nearly 100,000 artifacts, after the Rapid Support Forces occupied the facility from April 2023 until March 2025. More than 10,000 artifacts were plundered from the Sudan National Museum during the Rapid Support Forces occupation, causing irreparable damage to the institution's collection.

Statues of the deities Heket and Beset at the Sudan National Museum were used for target practice during the occupation. The gold vault at the Sudan National Museum was ransacked after Rapid Support Forces fighters found the key to the strongroom in the museum director’s desk. The vault behind the strongroom at the Sudan National Museum once contained almost 2,000 objects of 24-carat gold, gem-ornamented Nabatean funerary figures, and ancient jewelry from the Kingdom of Kush.

Storage rooms at the Sudan National Museum were firebombed, and 4,000-year-old skeletal remains in the bio-archaeology lab of the Sudan National Museum were scattered or scorched. Containers holding materials from international archaeological missions were stored in the backyard of the Sudan National Museum. Materials inside the containers at the Sudan National Museum, including excavation equipment, notes, and samples, were burned. Records for the burned archaeological materials at the Sudan National Museum do not exist.

Jamal Zaid Al-Abideen was the first civilian to enter the Sudan National Museum after the Sudanese army regained control of Khartoum. Bomb experts removed explosive materials from the Sudan National Museum. Ordinance found in the Sudan National Museum included.50-caliber rounds, bullet casings, and a half-destroyed drone. Umaima Abdul-Rahman Al-Sanusi has been employed at the Sudan National Museum for approximately 15 years.

What's New

The Sudan National Museum suffered the looting of approximately 8,000 pieces, according to a report by Graham Abdel Qader, undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and Information. Before its destruction, the Sudan National Museum held an estimated 100,000 objects covering history from the Nubian kingdoms and the Kushite empire to the country's Christian and Islamic periods.

The Rapid Support Forces were restructured as a paramilitary organization in August 2013 under the command of Muhammad Dagalo, also known as Hemedti. Sudanese is citizens or residents of Sudan. Khartoum is capital city of Sudan.

Why It Matters

The archaeological haul stolen in Sudan is valued at more than $150 million. At least 76 heritage sites have been ransacked in Sudan, and at least 20 museums have been ransacked in Sudan. One museum in Sudan was turned into a barracks. Almost no structure in Khartoum stands unscathed, including the multistory gold souq, the national cinema, and four museums in the capital.

Sudan's civil war has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Sudan's civil war has displaced approximately 14 million people. The Rapid Support Forces evolved from the government-supported Janjaweed militias of the 2000s.

The Rapid Support Forces became the Sudanese army’s most powerful ally before turning on it in 2023. The Rapid Support Forces denies that its fighters engage in looting.