LUXOR - Police in the Upper Egyptian Governorate of Luxor arrested Sunday two antiquity robbers, who made off with two priceless small statues in a pre-dawn raid on a storehouse Saturday, leaving three watchmen wounded, security sources said.
Police said they had retrieved the granite statuettes of Tuhtoment, one is 39 centimeter long and the other is 59 centimeter-long, which were stolen during the raid on the storehouse that is located on the West Bank of the Nile. The watchmen were found in the storehouse with their hands tied behind their backs, tape covering their mouths, with a wound to the back of the head of each one of them, the police said. Policemen closed off streets leading to the warehouse, while senior officers were at the scene to investigate the incident, which was reported on Saturday in the afternoon. Investigations showed that unidentified armed men had attacked the antiquities warehouse, beating up and injuring the watchmen before stealing the two statuettes, which are made of black granite. The attack is the latest in many attempts to rob Luxor's West Bank antiquities warehouse since Jan. 25, the first day of the nationwide protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11. Security in Egypt has been lax since the country's police forces withdrew from the streets on Jan. 28. Many policemen remain reluctant to return to the streets, fearing attacks by citizens still angry over clashes between demonstrators and security forces during the protests which led to the death of over 300 people. The warehouse doors were destroyed as were display cases, the Head of the Luxor Department of Egyptian Antiquities Mansour Berek, told the police saying. Some of the attackers had been caught, while others had escaped, he said. A committee had been formed to make an inventory of the warehouse's artefacts and identify what was stolen, he said. International gangs may be exploiting lack of security in Egypt given that several recent attacks on museums and antiquities sites had been organised by large armed groups, he said, and the ministry of culture has planned to move many antiquities to more secure places immediately. Ancient Egypt's culture, monuments, temples and pyramids of are a major draw for the country's tourism industry.
