The French government has promised to return artworks stolen from Benin during the colonial era.
26 thrones and statues were taken in 1892 during a colonial war against the then Kingdom of Dahomey.
According to France’s culture minister, Franck Riester the stolen artworks will be returned by 2021.
Franck Riester who was speaking during a visit to Benin signaled that there are 26 pieces of the stolen artworks now in the Quai Branly museum in Paris.
France in 2018 also promised to return the artifacts without delay, but Benin said at the time that it needed time to build a proper exhibition facility.
Last month France returned to Senegal a historical sword taken from the country many years ago.
The sabre, is a type of backsword with a curved blade. It belonged to an Islamic ruler in Senegal.
Owned by a 19th Century Islamic scholar and ruler the sword had been in a French museum until now.
During the years of slavery and subsequent colonization, many artifacts belonging to many African countries were wrongly taken and in some instances stolen.
Some of these artifacts are now all over museums across Europe and America, with push for their return hardly yielding any results.
There have been calls for all colonial powers to return all stolen artifacts back to original colonists.
Thousands of such artifacts were stolen from colonists in sub-Saharan Africa with experts saying as at last year most of the Africa collection in the Quai Branly museum were approximately 46,000 pieces.
Source: Africafeeds.com
