‘A huge crime’: Archive of Lebanon's news agency since 1961 is 'stolen'

The archive belonging to the National News Agency contained photographs of Lebanon’s civil war.
A woman on September 15, 2022, visits an exhibition titled 'Allo, Beirut?', that shows archives of Lebanon's troubled past fused with artistic depictions of a grim present, at the capital's Beit Beirut heritage-house-turned-museum. - Newspaper clippings, film negatives and diary entries from before Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war tell the story of government corruption, public sector strikes and student protest movements.(Photo by ANWAR AMRO/AFP via Getty Images)
A woman on Sept. 15, 2022, visits an exhibition titled 'Allo, Beirut?' that shows archives of Lebanon's troubled past fused with artistic depictions of a grim present, at the capital's Beit Beirut heritage house turned museum. Newspaper clippings, film negatives and diary entries from before Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war tell the story of government corruption, public sector strikes and student protest movements. - ANWAR AMRO/AFP via Getty Images
Al Monitor: The Pulse of the Middle East
Al-Monitor Staff

A Lebanese government archive was reported stolen on Monday, including trove of data and information from the civil war era in the country. 

Lebanon’s official National News Agency said its archive server was stolen along with five computers from the archive room. Ministry of Information staff discovered the theft on Monday morning. The server included “pictures of all occasions since 1961.” Information Minister Ziad Makary referred to the theft as “a huge crime,” according to the agency. 

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