Iraq has filed a complaint with Interpol as it seeks to mount pressure on several states to return looted artefacts, the Ministry of Culture said on Monday.
The country, the birthplace of the world's earliest civilisation in recorded history, is home to thousands of artefacts. Some have been lost over the years have yet to be found.
“The case is ongoing and we have had excellent achievements in favour of returning Iraqi antiquities,” said ministry spokesman Ahmed Al Alawi.
The ministry said it has a plan in place on how to recover the stolen artefacts.
“There is a recovery operations group that includes some foreign states that are working alongside the ministry,” Mr Al Alawi said.
For decades, the war-torn country has struggled with the widespread theft of its antiquities and ancient paintings.
The looting began when the government lost control of the south in 1991 after the First Gulf War, and continued during the security vacuum that emerged after the US led invasion of 2003.
According to Mr Al Alawi, lootings often happen when “pieces are stolen from museums or from random excavations, which is the major problem the ministry is facing”.
After the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, looters entered the Iraqi National Museum, stealing thousands of priceless pieces and damaging many of the ceramics and pottery artefacts.
Iraq has about 15,000 registered archaeological sites, said Mr Al Alawi. However, unregistered sites are double that number.
“Some residents of remote areas, in co-operation with thieves, are excavating these areas and extracting ancient pieces,” he said.
People then smuggle the antiquities and sell them abroad.
“There are strict laws that carry the death penalty for smugglers of antiquities,” said Mr Al Alawi.
In early 2021, Iraq received more than 17,000 ancient artefacts, most of them from the US. The relics, dating as far back as 4,000 years, were looted from Iraq and sold on the black market mainly after the First Gulf War.
Among them was an antique clay tablet bearing a portion of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest known surviving piece of literature.
For years, experts and officials have said that Iraq’s rich cultural heritage is being lost at “unprecedented rates” as a result of war and conflict between rival groups.
Understand What Black Is
The Last Poets
(Studio Rockers)
The specs
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Transmission: ten-speed
Power: 420bhp
Torque: 624Nm
Price: Dh325,125
On sale: Now
SPECS
Toyota land Cruiser 2020 5.7L VXR
Engine: 5.7-litre V8
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 362hp
Torque: 530Nm
Price: Dh329,000 (base model 4.0L EXR Dh215,900)
Ipaf in numbers
Established: 2008
Prize money: $50,000 (Dh183,650) for winners and $10,000 for those on the shortlist.
Winning novels: 13
Shortlisted novels: 66
Longlisted novels: 111
Total number of novels submitted: 1,780
Novels translated internationally: 66
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
DIVINE%20INTERVENTOIN
%3Cp%3EStarring%3A%20Elia%20Suleiman%2C%20Manal%20Khader%2C%20Amer%20Daher%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EDirector%3A%20Elia%20Suleiman%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ERating%3A%204.5%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Power: 258hp from 5,000-6,500rpm
Torque: 400Nm from 1,550-4,000rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 6.1L/100km
Price: from Dh362,500
On sale: now
Electric scooters: some rules to remember
- Riders must be 14-years-old or over
- Wear a protective helmet
- Park the electric scooter in designated parking lots (if any)
- Do not leave electric scooter in locations that obstruct traffic or pedestrians
- Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
- Do not drive outside designated lanes
Vaccine Progress in the Middle East
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.