South Sudan plans construction of first national museum after years of conflict
South Sudan's Ministry of Culture, Museums and National Heritage has announced plans to build the nation’s first museum has already begun.
The Acting Director General of the government ministry, Charles Kitab Biimo disclosed that his outfit had already budgeted for the project and plans to start construction in 2024, local media Eye Radio reports.
“We budgeted for the construction of the Museum this year. I came to know that the museum is important for keeping legacy and history or objects for the coming generation,” Kitab Biimo told reporters during a national event held in the nation’s capital, Juba.
While speaking of additional plans to learn from fellow African nations; Rwanda, Egypt, South Africa and Uganda on museum management, the government official said that construction of the country’s first museum would have begun earlier had the nation not been embroiled in a civil war.
“We failed to build the Museum all these years because of the conflict,” he said.
Accusations by South Sudan President Salva Kiir against former Vice President Riek Machar of an attempted coup set the nation on course in a protracted civil war spanning from 2013 to 2020, resulting in approximately 50,000 casualties and displacing 1.6 million people.
Currently, a mobile community-based national museum launched by the UN cultural agency UNESCO in 2014 serves as the South Sudan National Museum.
