Gezira: Sudan’s deadly nine-month conflict between two competing generals has expanded to a UNESCO World Heritage Site, an NGO claimed late Tuesday, raising concerns about the ancient Kingdom of Kush’s remains. The Regional Network for Cultural Rights stated that it “strongly condemns the incursion by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary forces of General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, on the sites of Naqa and Musawwarat es-Sufra.” Since April of last year, RSF soldiers have been fighting troops loyal to Sudan’s army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. According to the NGO, the event occurred on Sunday and was the second time since December that fighting broke out at the religious sites in the northern River Nile state. State officials also reported “an incursion by the RSF, repulsed by the air force” and claimed that “calm has returned” without specifying whether the locations were damaged. The cultural rights organization stated that it had reviewed “reliable sources, images and videos posted on social networks showing fighting between the army and the RSF, which probably exposed the sites to vandalism, destruction, looting, and theft”. According to UNESCO, the archaeological remains on the Island of Meroe, which is roughly 220 kilometers (137 miles) from Khartoum, were “the heartland of the Kingdom of Kush” and contain pyramids, temples, and homes dating back thousands of years.
