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Destroyed and looted in the early months of Sudan’s war, the national museum in Khartoum is now welcoming virtual visitors after months of painstaking effort to digitally recreate its collection.At the museum itself, almost nothing remains of the 100,000 artefacts it had stored since its construction in the 1950s. Only pieces too heavy for looters to haul off, like the massive granite statue of the Kush Pharaoh Taharqa and frescoes relocated from temples during the building of the Aswan Dam, are still present on site.”The virtual museum is the only viable option to ensure continuity,” government antiquities official Ikhlass Abdel Latif said, during a recent presentation of the project carried out by the French Archaeological Unit for Sudanese Antiquities (SFDAS) with support from the Louvre and Britain’s Durham University.When the museum was plundered following the outbreak of the war between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023, satellite images showed trucks loaded with relics heading towards Darfur, the western region now totally controlled by the RSF.Since then, searches for the missing artefacts aided by Interpol have only yielded meagre results.”The Khartoum museum was the cornerstone of Sudanese cultural preservation — the damage is astronomical,” said SFDAS researcher Faiza Drici, but “the virtual version lets us recreate the lost collections and keep a clear record”. Drici worked for more than a year to reconstruct the lost holdings in a database, working from fragments of official lists, studies published by researchers and photos taken during excavation missions.Then graphic designer Marcel Perrin created a computer model that mimicked the museum’s atmosphere — its architecture, its lighting and the arrangement of its displays.Online since January 1, the virtual museum now gives visitors a facsimile of the experience of walking through the institution’s galleries — reconstructed from photographs and the original plans — and viewing more than 1,000 pieces inherited from the ancient Kingdom of Kush.It will take until the end of 2026, however, for the project to upload its recreation of the museum’s famed “Gold Room”, which had housed solid-gold royal jewellery, figurines and ceremonial objects stolen by looters.In addition to the virtual museum’s documentary value, the catalogue reconstructed by SFDAS is expected to bolster Interpol’s efforts to thwart the trafficking of Sudan’s stolen heritage.The war in Sudan has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe, killing tens of thousands and forcing more than 11 million people to flee their homes, with many seeking shelter in underdeveloped areas with scarce food and medicine.

Australia’s defending Dakar Rally motorbike champion Daniel Sanders moved into the overall lead after winning Monday’s second stage in Saudi Arabia.The 31-year-old covered the 518km route from Yanbu to Al Ula in 4hrs 13mins 37 seconds to cross the line 1min 35s clear of KTM teammate Edgar Canet, who lost time with a couple of minor crashes.American Ricky Brabec, the 2024 winner, completed the day’s podium for Honda.With this 10th stage win in motorsport’s toughest challenge, Sanders climbed to the top of the bike standings by half a minute from Canet, winner of the prologue and opening stage, with Brabec 2min 18s back in third.”The navigation was really tricky in some places but we fixed a couple of mistakes quickly and didn’t lose too much time,” said Sanders, who has been competing in the Dakar since 2021.The rider, who lists bee-keeping as one of his hobbies and is known as ‘Chucky’, added: “I caught Edgar after around one hundred kilometres. It was so hard to catch him and pass him before.”After that, there was some really tricky stuff and he (Canet) just sat behind and watched, followed and learned.”Canet was thankful to complete an eventful stage unharmed.”Well, the stage is completed,” said the 20-year-old Spaniard.”The truth is that it has been a long stage, 400 km opening the track for the first time. “I had a few crashes, as you can see, but hey, these things happen. There are some rocks that you can’t see when you’re looking at the roadbook,” he added.In the car category, American Seth Quintero beat his South African Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate Henk Lategan by 1:42 with Saudi’s reigning champion Yazeed Al Rajhi in third.Qatar’s five-time Dakar winner Nasser Al-Attiyah heads the standings driving for Dacia by just seven seconds from Quintero after coming in eighth in the stage.Tuesday’s third stage is a 422km special starting and ending in Al Ula.

Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier.”He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, told AFP at her mud home in Ghunjan village.”We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photo of her son.Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died last month while trying to cross illegally into Iran from Afghanistan’s Herat province, according to officials, when temperatures were around -3C.With earthquakes and drought compounding a daily struggle to survive in Afghanistan, around half the population will need humanitarian assistance this year, according to the United Nations.”There was no other way left for me. I thought, let him go to make our life better,” said Mah Jan, 50, who requested the family’s surname not be published for privacy reasons.Habibullah’s stepbrother, Gul Ahmad, said the teenager had tried shoe polishing but only earned up to 15 afghanis (23 cents) per day.”He was ready to be a shepherd for 2,000 afghanis ($30 a month), to work in a shop, but he found nothing. So he was forced to leave. He told his mother, ‘Let’s trust in God, I’m going to Iran’,” said Gul Ahmad, 56.- ‘Very dangerous’ –  Habibullah was among 15 bodies returned from Iran, an Afghan border source told AFP on condition of anonymity.A further three migrants who died were recovered on the Afghan side of the frontier, an army official said.Over just a matter of days last month, around 1,600 Afghan migrants “who were at risk of perishing due to the weather” were rescued in the mountains, according to Iranian border guard commander Majid Shoja, quoted by the ILNA news agency.They are drawn to Iran due to greater job opportunities and a common language, but legal routes are limited.Afghanistan’s deputy minister for labour and social affairs, Abdul Manan Omari, said Sunday it was “necessary to do more” to facilitate work permits for migrants.Iran and Pakistan have combined sent back five million Afghans since September 2023, increasing the country’s population by 10 percent, according to the International Organization for Migration.The agency’s deputy head in Afghanistan, Mutya Izora Maskun, said that many in the country report “the economy, job insecurity, food insecurity, constrained access to services” force them to leave.They do so even if that means going through “illegal crossing points that are very dangerous due to the cold and the risks of human trafficking”, she told AFP.The Taliban government has taken “serious steps to fight the smugglers”, interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani told AFP.But attempts to reach Iran have not stopped.- ‘Destitute’ -In the last week of December, “347 people who were trying to illegally cross the border into Iran were identified and arrested”, a military unit in western Afghanistan said in a statement on Saturday.Abdul Majeed Haidari, whose one-year-old son suffers from a heart problem, tried his luck in mid-December.Working at a brick oven, the 25-year-old could no longer afford to pay for his son’s medication and family expenses.”We left because we were so destitute,” his stepbrother Yunus, who accompanied him, told AFP.”We set out in the rain. In such weather, the radars and cameras of the border guards do not work properly. But the smuggler got lost,” he said.They failed to light a fire for warmth and, as snow fell, Yunus recounted his stepbrother’s words: “I can’t walk anymore.””Some told us to leave him so as not to endanger the other 19 people in the group,” said Yunus, who requested his full name not be used.After carrying him for two more hours, “his eyes stopped closing, his body grew heavier,” Yunus recalled, before an Iranian family drove past and took them to hospital.”They gave him electric shocks, but they said he was already dead,” said Yunus, who has since returned to his village.