RSF determined to leave no war crime untried
RSF determined to leave no war crime untried
With genocide already ticked off the list, Hamdan Dagalo’s forces now stand accused of looting cultural artefacts to erase Sudan’s history.
Liban Mahamad
More than 200 Sudanese professors and researchers have written to the president of South Sudan asking for his help in returning artefacts looted from the National Museum of Sudan this year.
This was after the national broadcaster, SBC, reported over the weekend that it had confirmed the long-suspected looting, thanks to satellite images. These showed “trucks loaded with items” eaving the museum earlier this year, heading toward the border with South Sudan.
The museum, which houses antiques from every Sudanese civilisation, going as far back as the Stone Age, is located in a part of Khartoum that is currently controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The paramilitary group has been f ighting the national army since April 2023. In the early months of the war, RSF f ighters were filmed rummaging through another museum in the territory they control: the M Bolheim Bioarchaeology Laboratory, which holds ancient skeletons dating back to 3000 BCE.
Earlier this year, historical artefacts from the national museum started showing up online for sale. A piece of Jibbeh Tunic from the 1800s Mahdist military rule over Sudan was posted on eBay for sale at $200.
A Facebook post offered artefacts for sale, saying it would accept US dollars and deliver them to Port Sudan. Suspicion grew that RSF had looted the national museum.
“The RSF launched a war on the very identity of the country” Reem Abbas, a Sudanese researcher and fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East policy, told The Continent. “By targeting museums, cultural centres, universities and research centres, they seek to undermine Sudan’s cultural centre, which lies in the Nile area, and they will contest the history and land of the indigenous communities.”
As the war rages on, the resistance committees are keeping Sudan’s revolution alive – but only just
Contesting identity is a thread that runs through many of the war crimes accusations the RSF faces. In Darfur, where it has been repeatedly and credibly accused of genocidal violence, these accusations arose because of its targeting of black Sudanese people.