more and less information on the murder of excavation workers and kidnapping of archaeologists in Nigeria

More and less information has emerged in relation to the murder of excavation workers Anas Ibrahim and Adamu Abdulrahim and kidnapping of professor Peter Breunig and student Johannes Behringer. According to the Associated Press (AP) report, ‘Nigerian security forces… freed’ Breunig and Behringer.

The unfortunately phrased report observed that Kaduna State Governor Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai ‘commended the security agencies for their efforts in securing the release of the Germans’, though he did ‘not say whether anyone had been arrested for the kidnapping[s]’… or for the murders? (However, it was written by a journalist in Kaduna. Presumably, he used “kidnapping” to refer to the entirety of the event, including the murders.)

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kidnapped German archaeologists, professor Peter Breunig and student Johannes Behringer, have been freed in Nigeria

Police have relayed that the two German archaeologists who were kidnapped for ransom, professor Peter Breunig and student Johannes Behringer, have been freed. ‘No ransom was paid when they were freed’, according to the police (paraphrased by Reuters, which I learned via Paul Barford); though, equally, no details were given. Presumably, the police are still in pursuit of the murderers of the attempted rescuers, excavation workers Anas Ibrahim and Adamu Abdulrahim. Events took place around Janjala/Janjela/Jenjela village, Kadarko/Kagargo/Kagarko area (near the road between Kaduna airport and Abuja city), southern Kaduna state, north-western Nigeria.

update and correction: unknown gunmen have killed two excavation workers, kidnapped two [now freed] archaeologists in Nigeria

Unfortunately, there has not been any more news on rescue efforts yet. However, I have found more reports with more details, so I have updated my post. Most importantly, I thought that the killed hunters had been security escorts, but other reports have shown that they were excavation workers. So, it is the case that five still-unknown gunmen (two with machetes, three with ‘heavy guns’) have killed two excavation workers, kidnapped two archaeologists in Nigeria. Most of the new information comes from interviews of Sani Aliyu and Usman Kagarko by Premium Times.

unknown gunmen have killed two excavation workers, kidnapped two [now freed] archaeologists in Nigeria

Around 8.55am on Wednesday morning, abductors with ‘guns and machetes’ kidnapped two archaeologists in Janjala/Janjela/Jenjela village, Kadarko/Kagargo/Kagarko area (near the road between Kaduna airport and Abuja city), southern Kaduna state, north-western Nigeria. Tragically, according to the Archaeological Association of Nigeria, local hunters and excavation workers Anas Ibrahim and Adamu Abdulrahim, ‘who intervened to abort the kidnap’, were shot and killed; the identities of the killed were also given by attempted rescuer Usman Kagarko.

Sotheby’s blood antiquities from Cambodia

In Cambodia (as elsewhere), looting and smuggling are associated with poverty and corruption. Academic collusion is key to the ostensibly legal antiquities market. (Dr. Emma Bunker, who confirmed that Sotheby’s statue was ‘definitely stolen’, nonetheless advised them to sell the statue privately, or to sell the statue publicly without mentioning the scene of the crime, but either way to ignore legal advice.) And it is an illicit trade steeped in blood.

multidimensional poverty and the illicit antiquities trade

Some of the world’s most impoverished countries may eradicate acute poverty within a generation. As well as being good news in and of itself, the reduction in poverty may lead to a reduction in looting, because some of the poorest places are also some of the world’s most vulnerable and most plundered places.

a note on digging antiquities under economic duress

Yesterday, a Nigerian newspaper, Vanguard, published Antiquities Trade in Nigeria: Looting in the Midst of Crisis, which was a partial reprint of my review of the Nigerian antiquities trade. (While I’m very happy that they did that, they did it without my knowledge; and they haven’t yet replied to my tweet or my e-mail; so I don’t know why they only published part of it, if they will publish the rest of it, etc.)

the antiquities trade in Nigeria: looting in the midst of economic, environmental, political and professional crisis

African nations’ cultural objects have been harvested by foreign powers; attacked by religious movements and political factions; and, sometimes under duress, reduced to commodities and sacrificed for subsistence or survival. Still now, Nigerian ‘archaeological sites’ are ‘daily looted’; as Neil Brodie observed, nearly half of the objects on the International Council of Museums’ (ICOM) list of African ‘cultural goods most affected by looting and theft‘ are Nigerian artefacts.

In this post, which was published in Vanguard (Nigeria) on the 1st of November 2012, I outline the nature of the illicit trade in Nigerian antiquities and the struggle against that trade.

German archaeologists refute allegations of looting Nok culture in Nigeria

In my last post, I queried recent claims of German archaeologists looting Nigerian archaeological sites. One of those archaeologists, Prof. Peter Breunig, was kind enough to send me their letter to the Society of Africanist Archaeologists (SAfA), which confirmed my suspicions.

So, I have uploaded the German archaeologists’ refutations of Nigerian archaeologists’ accusations of looting (DOC), and I have summarised the facts of the matter here.