Home to centuries of heritage, Sudan's biggest museum is looted and wrecked by a 2-year war

CAIRO (AP) — Inside Sudan's biggest museum, the exhibition halls once filled with statues and relics from centuries of ancient civilizations are trashed, littered with debris. The display cases stand empty and shattered. A mummy lies exposed in an open storage box. All the gold artifacts have been looted.

The Sudan National Museum has been wrecked by two years of war in Sudan, with most of its artifacts stolen. Authorities blame the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which held this district of Khartoum along the banks of the Nile River for most of the conflict.

Since the Sudanese military regained control of the capital last month, officials have been working to assess the damage and loss in hopes of one day restoring the museum.

“The losses are extremely big and saddening. A significant number of antiquities were stolen," Gamal ElDeen Zain al-Abdeen, a senior official at the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, told The Associated Press. “The RSF destroyed everything ... concerning the civilization of the Sudanese people.”

The National Museum had thousands of pieces, dating back to the Paleolithic era well before the development of agriculture, and through the kingdoms of ancient Sudan. Many came from the Napatan era in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., when pharaohs from Sudan ruled over much of ancient Egypt, or from the later Meroitic kingdom that built pyramids in Sudan. Other halls had later Christian and Islamic material.

Some pieces too heavy to carry remain in place. In the museum's garden, a line of stone lions remains, as do the Colossi of Tabo, two large pharaonic-style statues. Also remaining are three pharaonic temples that were moved from northern Sudan and reassembled at the museum in the 1960s to escape the rising waters of Lake Nasser from Egypt's construction of the High Dam.

But many objects are gone. Looters broke into the locked storerooms and made off with all the gold artifacts, Zain al-Abdeen said. But it was too early to know how much of the museum’s collection had been stolen, he said.

He blamed the RSF for the destruction, saying they had fighters in the museum at some point during the war.

The war in Sudan broke out in April 2023, after tensions between the Sudanese army and the rival RSF turned into battles in the streets of Khartoum and rapidly spread around the country. The RSF held much of Khartoum during the war, including the district of the museum.

Now that they have been driven out, the extent of the destruction from fighting and looting is coming clear.

“Khartoum in general has been destroyed, particularly the center of Khartoum," Zain al-Abdeen said. "No building was spared from the bloodshed and theft, and this is what I saw with my own eyes.” He said all the city's museums were damaged, particularly the Ethnography Museum, where walls were demolished and halls and offices burned.

The ransacking is a blow to a country with a rich heritage, one that has deep resonance among Sudanese but is often overlooked abroad because of Sudan's decades of instability.

UNESCO said in September it was concerned about looting at the Sudan National Museum, which it helped renovate in 2019. It warned that sale or removal of artifacts “would result in the disappearance of part of the Sudanese cultural identity and jeopardize the country’s recovery.”

A UNESCO spokesperson said Friday that damage, looting and destruction of museums and cultural sites happened across Sudan's states of Khartoum, River Nile, Northern State, Gezeira and the Darfur region. An accurate assessment isn't possible due to the ongoing fighting.

The Sudan National Museum is among several that have undergone “extensive looting and substantial damage,” according to UNESCO.

Sedeeq Mohamed Sedeeq, who lives near the museum, said the RSF vowed democracy and liberation but instead they are “erasing the oldest nation in history, erasing its history.”

Reconstruction plans for destroyed museums will begin after committees assess the damage and recommend proposals for rehabilitation, Zein al-Abdeen said. The plans are expected to include building repairs, restoration of the antiquities storage areas and fixing the museum’s surrounding grounds.

At least 20,000 people have been killed since the war broke out, though the number is likely far higher. The war has also driven more than 14 million people from their homes and pushed parts of the country into famine.

Windows of the Sudan National Museum, the home to the country's largest artifacts that date to different eras of Sudanese history, are shattered after nearly two years of war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Abd Al Gader)

A Meroitic lion statue is seen in the garden of Sudan National Museum, the home to the country's largest artifacts that date to different eras of Sudanese history, after nearly two years of war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Abd Al Gader)

A Meroitic lion statue is seen in the garden of Sudan National Museum, the home to the country's largest artifacts that date to different eras of Sudanese history, after nearly two years of war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Abd Al Gader)

Windows of Sudan National Museum, the home to the country's largest artifacts that date to different eras of Sudanese history, are shattered after nearly two years of war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Abd Al Gader)

A granite colossal statue from the ancient temple of Tabo on Argo Island stands despite the damage at the Sudan National Museum, the home to the country's largest artifacts that date to different eras of Sudanese history, after nearly two years of war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Abd Al Gader)

Antiquities vitrines are seen broken and collections were stolen at Sudan National Museum, the home to the country's largest artifacts that date to different eras of Sudanese history, after nearly two years of war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Abd Al Gader)

Antiquities warehouses are seen looted at Sudan National Museum, the home to the country's largest artifacts that date to different eras of Sudanese history, after nearly two years of war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Abd Al Gader)

Mummy coffins lie destroyed on the ground at the Sudan National Museum, the home to the country's largest artifacts that date to different eras of Sudanese history, after nearly two years of war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Abd Al Gader)

Windows of Sudan National Museum, the home to the country's largest artifacts that date to different eras of Sudanese history, are shattered after nearly two years of war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Abd Al Gader)

Sudan National Museum, the home to the country's largest artifacts that date to different eras of Sudanese history, is seen after nearly two years of war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Abd Al Gader)

CAIRO (AP) — Iranians began to regain internet access on Wednesday after authorities ended a monthslong shutdown. But users said service was slow and spotty in some areas, with apps like YouTube and Instagram heavily restricted, as they were before the cutoff began during nationwide protests in January.

Authorities justified the outage as a military imperative after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Their decision to lift some restrictions this week came as negotiators appeared to be closing in on a more permanent truce. But many Iranians feared access could be cut off again at a moment's notice.

Internet tracking company Netblocks said Iran’s connectivity, which measures the ability of devices to connect to the internet, is at around 86% of capacity from before the cutoff. Internet analysis firm Kentik said internet traffic, which measures the amount of data transferred and is a good illustration of usage, was at around 40%.

Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity analyst, said there were still widespread disruptions. “It's too early to say the shutdown is over,” he wrote on X.

Iran’s roughly 90 million people have been cut off from the internet for most of 2026, one of the world’s longest and strictest national shutdowns. Young people with online careers saw their incomes evaporate. Job losses and the closure of online businesses added to the war's steep economic costs.

The cutoff made it difficult for Iranian families to communicate through months of unrest and war. At some points, phone lines were also cut off, though they were later restored.

A woman living in Tehran said that for months she was barely able to speak to her sons living abroad. She couldn't believe authorities had restored access, saying she had assumed they would find some justification to prolong the outage.

A taxi driver said service was restored but weak. He expressed hope it would improve so he could use messaging apps with family and friends. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Prices spiked during the shutdown, with residents in Tehran at times paying around $7.50 per gigabyte. Prices are back down to around $2.25 for 30 gigabytes, roughly where they were before the protests.

Even then, Iran tightly controlled access to popular social media sites, leading many to rely on virtual private networks, or VPNs. The cost of those workarounds soared during the shutdown, making them unaffordable for many as the economy was battered.

Businesses have started reappearing online, announcing their return with posts on sites like Instagram and Telegram.

A gamer and tech influencer in the central city of Isfahan said the shutdown had caused him to lose a lot of his audience on YouTube and Instagram, where he had spent years building up a large following.

“All my views and interactions are way down. I’ve been erased from the algorithm,” he said in a voice note sent by WhatsApp, adding that his internet connection was still slower than before the shutdown.

“The situation is such that many content producers have had their income reduced to zero, have moved on to other jobs, or have been forced to sell their equipment to survive,” he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Iranian authorities first shut down the internet in January during mass anti-government protests that were eventually stamped out in a violent crackdown. Thousands of people were killed and tens of thousands detained.

That cutoff was just starting to ease when the government imposed a complete internet blackout after the start of the war, when U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader and other top officials.

The government faced criticism for the prolonged shutdown, which caused even more harm to an economy devastated by inflation, strikes on key industries and a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports.

The internet cutoff cost an estimated $30-40 million daily, with indirect losses likely twice that much, a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Afshin Kolahi, told a local newspaper last month. About 10 million people have jobs that depend on internet connectivity, according to Communications Minister Sattar Hashemi.

Iranians still had access to a national net, but that has a far narrower reach, and users complained of poor service and heavy censorship. Senior government officials are given SIM cards granting them access to the global internet. Under pressure, the government expanded access to the SIM cards to some professions during the shutdown.

A woman checks her smartphone while sitting on a bench along a sidewalk in northern Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)