Valuable Sculptures Stolen from the National Museum in Damascus
Historic statues and additional items have been removed from the National Museum of Syria in Damascus, officials say.
The robbery was discovered on the start of the week, when staff reportedly found that a doorway had been damaged from the interior.
The six missing sculptures were crafted from marble and traced back to the Roman era, a source told the news agency.
Cultural heritage officials said it had opened an investigation to establish the "circumstances surrounding the theft of a collection of items", and that actions had been enacted to improve safeguarding and monitoring systems.
The chief of national security in the Damascus region, Security Chief Atkeh, was quoted by the official media as saying that security forces were probing the theft, which he said had affected several "archaeological statues and rare collectibles".
He continued that security personnel at the institution and additional people were being interviewed.
The cultural institution, which was established in 1919, contains the most important historical artifacts in the country.
It features clay cuneiform tablets tracing back to the ancient era from historical site, where evidence of the earliest linguistic system was found; 1st and 2nd Century AD Greco-Roman sculptures from Palmyra, a significant cultural centres of the classical era; and a ancient synagogue that was established at another archaeological site.
The museum was forced to close in the early 2010s, a year after the beginning of the devastating civil war. The majority of the collection was transferred and stored at secure places to protect them.
It reopened partially in 2018 and resumed full operations in the beginning of the year, one month after opposition groups removed the Assad regime.
Every one of Syria's Unesco World Heritage sites were harmed or partially destroyed during the civil war.
The militant faction blew up several ancient buildings and additional edifices at Palmyra, asserting that they were un-Islamic. Unesco censured the demolition as a war crime.
Many historical objects were also lost or looted from dig sites and collections.