Since April 2023, an intense armed conflict has been waged in Sudan between two factions of the Sudanese military government, the military Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Fighting has been particularly severe around the capital, Khartoum, where most of the national museums and cultural institutions are concentrated. As well as the tragic loss of lives and destruction of homes, Sudan’s current conflict threatens the rich cultural heritage of its people.
It has already been reported that both the Sudan Natural History Museum and the Sudan National Museum were damaged in April 2023. Using satellite imagery, the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab (CHML) has identified significant damage to the main building of the Natural History Museum, as well as some fire damage to two structures of the Sudan National Museum (Gunter-Bassett et al. 2023; Bassett et al. 2023). Even more recent reports indicate that the RSF has taken control of the Sudan National Museum within the last couple of weeks, putting it at risk of further damage from conflict, particularly shelling by the SAF.
The MAEASaM team, in the context of collaboration with NCAM (the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums – Sudan’s heritage body), alongside Western Sudan Community Museums and other institutions and researchers, has produced two maps demonstrating the potential impact of the current conflict on heritage sites around the country.
The first shows the location of various cultural institutions in Khartoum in relation to areas with regular reports of conflict or destruction of property across May and June, as based on various sources mapping such events. This indicates that many of these institutions are in or near major current conflict areas.
The second shows a variety of museums and selected archaeological sites across Sudan more generally, in relation to wider zones of control. It also shows that many are near contested areas, or margins between areas of control, particularly sites in Darfur, Kordofan, and Khartoum, and the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the area around Jebel Barkal.
We are in conversation with NCAM personnel in and outside of Sudan and other projects to coordinate what we can do to assist our colleagues in Sudan in the immediate term.
The first map used a variety of sources mapping ongoing conflict locations, which we collated to indicate areas where there were multiple reports of incidents in May and/or June. These sources include eSudani, which collects GPS data directly online from respondents; the Centre for Information Resilience’s map at MapHub, which uses its own data collected primarily from social media, alongside NASA FIRMS, ACLED, and some GeoConfirmed data; and GeoConfirmed data directly. The second map used as its primary source Wikipedia’s regularly updated map of the current areas of control, which maps evidence from other Wikipedia articles.
Because of the incomplete and self-reported nature of much of the data used to make the first map, as well as our actions in combining multiple single points into wider areas, this map should be understood as indicating only a general idea of recent conflict areas, and not precise locations. In addition, the situation is highly changeable and not all sources can be confirmed – multiple different sources were chosen to try to minimise such inaccuracies or biases.
We also would like to take this occasion to extend our support to our Sudanese colleagues.
Bibliography:
Gunter-Bassett, M., Bassett, H. F., Hanson, K., Welsh, W., Fitzgerald, K., Maher, A., Aronson, J., Cil, D., Averyt, K., Carroll, C., Wegener, C., and Daniels, B. I. (2023) Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab Rapid Report: Damage to the Sudan National Museum (18 May 2023). Virginia Museum of Natural History, Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab; University of Maryland, Center for International Development and Conflict Management; Penn Museum, Penn Cultural Heritage Center; and Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative. DOI: 10.25573/data.22963304.
Bassett, H. F., Gunter-Bassett, M., Welsh, W., Fitzgerald, K., Maher, A., Aronson, J., Cil, D., Hanson, K., Averyt, K., Carroll, C., Wegener, C., and Daniels, B. I. (2023). Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab Rapid Report: Damage to the Sudan Natural History Museum (17 May 2023). Virginia Museum of Natural History, Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab; University of Maryland, Center for International Development and Conflict Management; Penn Museum, Penn Cultural Heritage Center; and Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative. DOI: 10.25573/data.22932470.
eSudani: https://esudani.com/
The Centre for Information Resilience’s map at MapHub: https://maphub.net/bendobrown/sudan-conflict-map
GeoConfirmed: https://www.geoconfirmed.org/sahel/e6d6867a-7290-4530-f4d7-08db640e0635
Wikipedia’s collated map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Sudan_conflict#/media/File:2023_Sudan_clashes.svg
