Press Statement
Janjaweed Militia propaganda broadcast video clips of its members at the well-known archaeological site “Naqa’a and al-Musawarat,” which is located north of Khartoum, in the Nile River State. The Militia announced that it would use the site to launch new attacks on nearby villages and towns.
Naqaa and al-Musawwarat are among the most prominent protected archaeological sites in Sudan; they contain buildings dating back about 3,000 years and have been on the Human Heritage List since 2011.
The latest crime comes as a continuation of the Militia’s systematic endeavor to destroy cultural heritage in Sudan, which has so far included vandalizing the Sudan National Museum, the National Records Office, a number of universities, public libraries, and historical places of worship. Last week, the Militia destroyed the Evangelical Church in the city of Wad Medani, which was about a hundred years old, and had previously destroyed a number of mosques and churches in Khartoum State.
Targeting cultural heritage and institutions that embody freedom of religion is a prominent feature that distinguishes terrorist groups, as happened by of ISIS, Boko Haram, and terrorist groups in the Sahel region of Africa. One of the members of these groups was tried at the International Criminal Court in 2016 for the crime of destroying cultural heritage in the city of Timbuktu, Mali.
All of this leaves no justification for the international community and regional and international organizations not to classify the militia as a terrorist group and deal with it on that basis
