Illicit Trafficking and Destruction of Cultural Property in Africa: A Continent at a Crossroads

Abstract

The questions of plunder, theft, illicit traffic and destruction of cultural heritage in Africa continue unabated, despite the many attempts and calls, both locally and internationally, for the need to address the issue. A huge continent with diversity of peoples, languages and heritage resources Africa, as in the past decades, continue to bleed, as its heritage is ripped away for sale abroad, or destroyed at home, due to greed, ignorance, new emergent religious fundamentalism, internal conflicts or neglect.