Over 4,500 Artifacts Stolen From Raqqa Museum

More than 4,500 artifacts have been stolen from the collections of a museum in the Syrian city of Raqqa, a director in the Syrian Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) Muhammad Nazeer Awad told Sputnik on Monday.

He called the situations with the museums of Raqqa and Idlib catastrophic, adding that some artifacts had also been stolen from museums in the cities of Homs, Palmyra, Daraa and Bosra. According to Awad, the lists of pieces stolen from museums in Bosra and Daraa had not been completed yet because both settlements had only recently been liberated [....] Awad noted that it was impossible to assess the scale of the cultural heritage, which was stolen in Syria. The official said that the DGAM had created a special department for returning antiquities. 

During the retaking of the cities of Palmyra, Daraa, Homs the Syrian army found antiquities that had already been prepared for trafficking from Syria. The situation in Idlib remains unknown.