How millennia of history vanished in Sudan's war

 Sudanese residents gather to receive free meals in El-Fasher, a city besieged by Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for more than a year, in Darfur region, on August 11, 2025. (Photo by AFP)

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.