As Sudan descends into civil war, sources on the ground in Khartoum say the country’s museums are caught in the crossfire and raise fears that artists associated with the pro-democracy movement are under attack.
Sudan’s National Museum, filled with treasures of Nubian archeology, has been the scene of fierce fighting between rival military factions in the capital since April 14, according to reports. The extent of the damage to the museum is still unclear, but leading artists and museum professionals in Sudan fear the collection could be looted.
The museums “are caught in the crossfire of the battles between the two warring sides,” Sara Saeed, director of the Sudan Museum of Natural History, said in a statement. statement provided at the International Council of Museums (Icom).
Early in the morning of April 14, shortly after the call to prayer, residents of Khartoum heard mortar and artillery fire. Intense fighting broke out between the state army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, commanded by a rival general named Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The conflict was initially centered around the army headquarters, the presidential palace and the international airport. But the National Museum of Sudan, established in 1971, has also become a battleground.
“The museum is a prime target for both sides in the conflict, who seem to ignore the value and importance of the country’s heritage,” said Khalid Albaih, an artist and journalist based in Khartoum. The arts journal.
“No one knows how much damage the [National Museum] caught,” says Ala Kheir, a Khartoum-based artist and photographer. “Many places have been broken into, with nothing left behind,” he says. “That’s what worries me the most.”
The National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum has become a battleground in the military conflict
Intense military clashes have prompted residents of Khartoum to flee the city center and seek refuge from the violence. This left museums, cultural sites and other national monuments vulnerable to looting.
“Museums are now without guards to protect them from looting and vandalism,” Saeed said. “In light of the deteriorating daily situation due to lack of food and vital resources, weak souls will be exploited to steal [artefacts from] important museums and smuggle them out of the country.
Before violence erupted, Sudan was moving away from military rule and towards a form of democratic governance after the revolutionary events of 2019, when tens of thousands of protesters gathered at military headquarters in Khartoum.
“Throughout our recent history, Sudan has been cursed by military dictatorships, but it has also been endowed – like most of the region – with a young population that uses its creative resistance to regain power, circumventing censorship, sharia, violence and most notably, the apathy of the world”, Albaih wrote in an article For The arts journal in February 2020.
Continued protests eventually led to the ousting of authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir, a military commander who had ruled the country by force since 1989.
“Art played an important role from the start of political change in Sudan, and it started to involve even more people during the 2019 revolution,” Kheir says. “Many artists have changed the conversation to engage more people on important topics that we as Sudanese need to discuss.”
According to Kheir, artists associated with pro-democracy protests are now being targeted by fighters loyal to the RSF amid the violence. This includes female artists who enjoyed more freedoms in the country after the disbanding of the so-called morality police, active during al-Bashir’s rule, under the transitional government. The conflict marks “the return of national security forces that served during al-Bashir’s rule, and that is a chilling fact for all activists”, Kheir said.
He claims that a group of RSF soldiers broke into the home of Saad Eltinay, an artist and photographer based in Khartoum. “When they found his fingerprints from the revolution, they arrested him.” The arts journal was unable to verify this at the time of publication.
Sudan, one of the largest countries in Africa, is renowned in archaeological circles for the abundance of its ancient sites, now threatened by the repercussions of the conflict.
At Old Dongola, the seat of Christian power in Nubian times located on the banks of the Nile, a team of Polish archaeologists recently unearthed a hidden complex of chambers containing unique Christian artwork. The site is currently being used as a shelter for families fleeing violence in Khartoum.
Beyond Old Dongola, one of the region’s most important archaeological sites is the ancient city of Meroë. Located about 200 km northeast of Khartoum, it was once the capital of the Kingdom of Kush, a powerful civilization that flourished from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD. Meroe has more than 200 pyramids built as burial places for the royal family and the elites of the kingdom.
Another important archaeological site is near Jebel Barkal or Gebel Barkal mountain. About 400 km north of Khartoum, it was once a religious center of the Kingdom of Kush. The mountain is home to many temples and tombs, including the Temple of Amun, dedicated to the ancient Egyptian god.
The UK has a special historical connection with the city of Omdurman, located just across the Nile from Khartoum. This is where the Battle of Omdurman took place in 1898 as part of the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan. The Khalifa House Museum, which documents the conflict, received funding from the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund in 2018 for renovations as well as training local staff in curating and managing the collections.
Although these sites do not currently appear to be affected by the conflict, archaeologists around the world hope for their continued preservation. Looting of antiquities usually proliferates in war zones.
Beyond the current conflict, Sudan remains a country plagued by extreme poverty and displacement. Kheir was born in Darfur, western Sudan, a region synonymous with the 2003 genocide. In March 2009, al-Bashir became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court, for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. in Darfur.
Kheir’s photography partly meditates on the ongoing consequences of war in Sudan. His work will be exhibited in public spaces across New York in June in a group exhibition titled Reframing neglectsponsored by the END Fund in partnership with the New York Department of Transportation’s Art Program.
