World
Can the world stop malaria with new vaccines?
After decades of research and trials, a groundbreaking malaria vaccine is being rolled out across West Africa in a major attempt to eliminate the disease which is the second-biggest cause of death of children on the continent.
On January 22, health workers in Cameroon began gathering babies and children below five years of age for the first doses of the RTS,S vaccine, which has been developed by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and PATH, a non-profit health organisation. The vaccine’s designation – RTS,S – refers to the genes of the parasite it was produced from.
Children in Burkina Faso will be next to receive the jab, starting this month. A second vaccine, R21, was approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) in December and is likely to be rolled out in a matter of months. This vaccine is already being used in some African countries, Ghana being the first to approve it last year.
These vaccines have been developed as part of a global push to stamp out malaria, a disease which can be deadly for children and pregnant women. Nearly all of the more than 200 million annual cases in the world occur in African countries.
Here’s all you need to know about the new malaria vaccines:
How do the vaccines work?
Although research for a malaria vaccine has been ongoing since the 1980s and trials started as far back as 2004, the RTS,S vaccine was recommended by the WHO in 2021 as part of a process towards certification. In July 2022, WHO officially approved the vaccine for use. It has a 75 percent efficacy rate.
Named Mosquirix, the vaccine is formulated to activate antibodies and target the infectious stage of Plasmodium falciparum, a malaria-causing parasite. This parasite is spread by the female anopheles mosquito when it bites.
In trials carried out between 2009 and 2011 across seven African countries, the RTS,S vaccine prevented infants from developing malaria for at least three years after the first vaccination. Over the four years, malaria cases among children immunised with the vaccine when they were aged between five and 17 months dropped by 39 percent. Among those immunised between six and 12 weeks after birth, malaria cases dropped by 27 percent.
In a pilot programme launched in Ghana, Malawi and Kenya in 2019, the WHO reported that the use of the vaccine had resulted in a 13 percent decline in the number of deaths from malaria among more than two million children monitored.
R21, or Matrix-M, is a second malaria vaccine that was approved by the WHO in December 2023. It was developed by Oxford University and manufactured by Serum Institute of India. In test trials, R21 showed an efficacy rate of 75 percent over 12 months. There are plans to roll out this jab in Africa alongside the RTS,S vaccine in mid-2024.
Wendy Prudhomme O’Meara, a professor at Duke University, told Al Jazeera the main drawback of the Oxford vaccine is that frequent boosters are required.
“Efficacy wanes within a year [and] this makes it very effective for seasonal protection but we hope that as we continue to build the R&D [research and development] pipeline for malaria, we can improve on this,” O’Meara said. “I think the malaria community understands that this is an important first step, but it is not the end of the road.”
How dangerous is malaria?
Severe malaria can cause complications such as organ failure and can result in death. It is the number two cause of toddler deaths in Africa after respiratory illnesses – nearly half a million children die from malaria in African countries every year.
The disease is especially deadly for children because they are less likely to have built up any immunity to it.
Pregnant women in their second and third trimesters are also particularly vulnerable to becoming infected with malaria because their immunity levels are reduced. People visiting high transmission areas from malaria-free zones are vulnerable too because they lack any built-up immunity that comes from living in endemic areas.
Millions of malaria cases are recorded every year around the world. In 2022 alone, some 249 million cases were recorded, with a death toll of 608,000 across 85 countries.
Nearly all – 94 percent – of these were in African countries.
Why are African countries so vulnerable to malaria?
A host of factors including weather patterns, poor sanitation and weak public healthcare systems contribute to the continent carrying nearly all of the world’s malaria burden.
In 2022, nearly all deaths from malaria worldwide were recorded on the continent. Four countries – Nigeria (27 percent), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (12 percent), Uganda (5 percent) and Mozambique (4 percent) – accounted for almost half of all cases.
Malaria thrives in the tropics, where climatic conditions allow the anopheles mosquito to successfully produce malaria parasites in its saliva, which it transmits to humans when it bites them. Waterlogged, damp places are the insect’s favourite breeding ground. During the rainy season, therefore, malaria transmission rates tend to be higher.
Some analysts describe malaria as “a disease of the poor”. Families living in mosquito-infested environments who cannot afford chemically treated mosquito nets or insecticides often bear the brunt of the disease. Treatments for the disease can be expensive. In Mozambique, a 2019 study found that one household will need to spend $3.46 for treatments for an uncomplicated case, but up to $81.08 for treatments for a severe case. The average household income in Mozambique is about $149 per month.
Even without vaccines, malaria could be eliminated if more attention is paid to reducing poverty structures and providing better living environments, O’Meara of Duke University said.
“Malaria was eliminated in the US before modern insecticide-treated nets, before DDT [insecticide] and certainly before artemisinin combination drugs or vaccines,” she said. “Malaria ecology in the US was of course much different than Africa, but still that was achieved by environmental management, bednets [untreated] and by reducing human-mosquito contact through better living conditions. Poor housing construction, open windows and eaves, open drainage systems and poor urban water management contribute significantly to the persistence of malaria.”
Countries in Asia, the Pacific and South America also experience malaria transmission, especially Papua New Guinea. Outside Africa, the disease is also spread by the female anopheles, but it carries Plasmodium vivax, another malaria parasite that can thrive in lower temperatures.
Which African countries have eliminated malaria?
So far, three African countries have successfully rid themselves of malaria: Mauritius (1973), Algeria (2019) and Cape Verde, which was certified malaria-free by the WHO last month after reporting zero transmissions for three consecutive years.
It took a huge effort. Cape Verde, for example, took decades to get the WHO certification. All 10 of its islands were affected by malaria in the 1950s. Using targeted insecticide spraying campaigns, the country reported itself malaria-free in 1967 and again in 1983, only to discover more malaria cases later.
Could malaria be wiped out worldwide?
Eliminating malaria everywhere in the world might be possible, but not with vaccines alone.
Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, who commits billions of dollars to malaria research through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, predicts that malaria could be eradicated by 2040, based on elimination targets at the country level.
The new vaccines are a “momentous achievement” and will provide a huge boost to the global eradication push, but they will not be effective alone, says Krystal Birungi, an entomologist with Target Malaria, an organisation working on developing genetically modified mosquitoes to reduce malaria transmission.
“It is an important addition to the toolbox for the fight against malaria and will save many lives,” Birungi said. “That said, research has shown that no one tool is a silver bullet against malaria and it is still vitally essential to utilise the existing tools, like insecticide sprays, long-lasting insecticide-treated nets and antimalarial drugs, as well as to continue developing new tools like genetically modified mosquitoes and gene drive to fight malaria.”
Many countries already distribute insecticide nets, chemicals and preventive oral solutions in high-risk areas free of charge. However, there are monetary and logistical challenges to carrying out widespread, consistent spraying, with conflict and instability in several countries hindering those measures.
Furthermore, mosquito behaviour is changing. As the world continues to warn because of climate change, studies show that mosquitoes will gain more breeding environments, meaning there could be higher transmission rates for diseases like malaria.
Currently, African countries are trying to tackle the anopheles stephensi, an invasive species originally from South Asia that thrives in urban environments.
“Due to the vector being a mosquito that can fly and doesn’t respect boundaries, we need to achieve malaria elimination everywhere in order to ensure safety for all, even places where malaria has been declared eliminated,” Birungi added.
What happens next with the vaccines?
Burkina Faso – which recorded nearly 12.5 million cases of malaria in 2022 – began its inoculation campaign on February 5, adding the RTS,S to other routine vaccines for children. Some 250,000 children are being immunised in an initial phase because of a limited number of doses.
Children from five months old are eligible for the scheduled four-dose treatment – or five doses for infants and children in high-risk areas.
Liberia, Niger and Sierra Leone will be next to deploy the jab later this year.
There is a very high demand for the vaccines, so supply is likely to fall far short. Only 18 million doses of the RTS,S vaccine are currently available to cover 12 countries through 2025, according to Gavi [full name, organisation, etc?]. It is unclear how many doses are needed or what the shortfall is, however, there are about 207 million children aged below four across the continent. In all, African countries will need some 40 to 60 million malaria doses annually by 2026.
The rollouts may also face social challenges. In the past, rumours that vaccines make women sterile have caused people to shun polio jabs in countries like Nigeria. Bringing the doses to rural and remote areas, as well as finding adequate electricity supply to store them at the required cool temperature, could also prove to be significant hurdles that will have to be overcome.
Pakistan has accused Afghanistan’s Taliban of serving as a “proxy” for India, amid escalating hostilities between Islamabad and Kabul.
Just hours after Pakistan bombed locations in Kabul early on Friday, Pakistan’s Minister of Defence Khawaja Asif wrote on X that after NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan in July 2021, “it was expected that peace would prevail in Afghanistan and that the Taliban would focus on the interests of the Afghan people and regional stability”.
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“However, the Taliban turned Afghanistan into a colony of India,” he wrote and accused the Taliban of “exporting terrorism”.
“Pakistan made every effort, both directly and through friendly countries, to keep the situation stable. It carried out extensive diplomacy. However, the Taliban became a proxy of India,” he alleged as he declared an “open war” with Afghanistan.
This is not the first time that Asif has brought India into tensions with Afghanistan.
Last October, he alleged: “India wants to engage in a low-intensity war with Pakistan. To achieve this, they are using Kabul.”
So far, Asif has presented no evidence to back his claims and the Taliban has rejected accusations that it is being influenced by India.
But India has condemned the Pakistani military’s recent actions in Afghanistan, adding to Islamabad’s growing discernment that its nuclear rival and the Taliban are edging closer.
Earlier this week, after the Pakistani military carried out air raids inside Afghanistan on Sunday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement that New Delhi “strongly condemns Pakistan’s airstrikes on Afghan territory that have resulted in civilian casualties, including women and children, during the holy month of Ramadan”.
After Friday morning’s flare-up between Pakistan and Afghanistan, India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal again said New Delhi “strongly” condemned Pakistan’s air strikes and also noted that they took place on a Friday during the holy month of Ramadan.
“It is another attempt by Pakistan to externalise its internal failures,” Jaiswal said in a statement on X.
Has India’s influence in Afghanistan grown under the Taliban and what is India’s endgame with Afghanistan?
Here’s what we know:
How have relations between India and the Taliban evolved?
When the Taliban first rose to power in Afghanistan in 1996, India adopted a hostile policy towards the group and did not recognise its assumption of power. India also shunned all diplomatic relations with the Taliban.
At the time, New Delhi viewed the Taliban as a proxy for Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. Pakistan, together with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, were the only three countries to have also recognised the Taliban administration at that point.
Then, in 2001, India supported the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, which toppled the Taliban administration. India then reopened its embassy in Kabul and embraced the new government led by Hamid Karzai. The Taliban, in response, attacked Indian embassies and consulates in Afghanistan. In 2008, at least 58 people were killed when the Taliban bombed India’s embassy in Kabul.
In 2021, after the Taliban returned to power, India closed its embassy in Afghanistan once again and also did not officially recognise the Taliban as the government of the country.
But a year later, as relations between Pakistan and the Taliban deteriorated over armed groups which Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harbouring, India began engaging with the Taliban.
In 2022, India sent a team of “technical experts” to run its mission in Kabul and officially reopened its embassy in the Afghan capital last October. New Delhi also allowed the Taliban to operate Afghanistan consulates in the Indian cities of Mumbai and Hyderabad.
Over the past two years, officials from New Delhi and Afghanistan have also held meetings abroad, in Kabul and in New Delhi.
In January last year, the Taliban administration’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi met India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.
Then, in October 2025, he visited New Delhi and met Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
After this meeting, Muttaqi told journalists that Kabul “has always sought good relations with India” and, in a joint statement, Afghanistan and India pledged to have “close communication and continue regular engagement”.
Besides beefing up diplomatic ties, India has also offered humanitarian support to Afghanistan under the Taliban’s rule.
After a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck northern Afghanistan in November last year, India shipped food, medicine and vaccines, and Jaishankar was also among the first foreign ministers to call Muttaqi and offer his support. Since last December, India has also approved and implemented several healthcare infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, according to a December 2025 report by the country’s press information bureau.
Praveen Donthi, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that the costs of avoiding engagement with the Taliban in the past have compelled the Indian government to adopt strategic pragmatism towards the Afghan leadership this time.
“New Delhi does not want to disregard this relationship on ideological grounds or create strategic space for India’s main strategic rivals, Pakistan and China, in its neighbourhood,” he said.
Raghav Sharma, professor and director at the Centre for Afghanistan Studies at the OP Jindal Global University in India, added that the current engagement also stems from New Delhi’s pragmatic realisation that the Taliban is now in charge in Afghanistan and that there is no meaningful opposition.
“States engage in order to protect and further their interests. While there is little by way of ideological convergence, there are areas of strategic convergence, which is what has pushed India to engage with the Taliban, some of their unpalatable policies notwithstanding,” he said.
Is this a new stance towards Afghanistan?
No. India’s growing influence and engagement with Afghanistan began well before the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.
Between December 2001 and September 2014, during the US presence in Afghanistan, New Delhi was a strong supporter of the Karzai government, and then of his successor, Ashraf Ghani’s government, which was in power from September 2014 until August 2021, when the US withdrew from the country.
In October 2011, under Karzai, India and Afghanistan renewed ties by signing an agreement to form a strategic partnership. New Delhi also pledged to support Afghanistan in the face of foreign troops in the nation as a part of this agreement.
Under both Karzai and his successor, Ghani, India invested more than $3bn in humanitarian aid and reconstruction work in Afghanistan. This included reconstruction projects like schools and hospitals, and also a new National Assembly building in Kabul, which was inaugurated in December 2015 when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Afghanistan for the first time.
India’s Border Road Organisation (BRO) also assisted Afghanistan in the development of infrastructure projects like the 218km Zaranj-Delaram highway in 2009 under Karzai’s government.
Under Ghani, New Delhi undertook building the Salma Dam project to help with irrigating Afghanistan. In June 2016, when Modi visited Afghanistan once again, he inaugurated this $290m dam project. In May 2016, Iran, India and Afghanistan also signed a trilateral trade and transit agreement on the Chabahar port.
During this period – 2001-2021 – Pakistan’s unease with New Delhi and Kabul’s new partnership grew.
In October 2011, after signing a strategic agreement with India, Karzai had assured Islamabad that while “India is a great friend, Pakistan is a twin brother”.
But Karzai was critical of Pakistan’s support for the Taliban. In his last speech as president of Afghanistan in Kabul in September 2014, he stated that he believed most of the Taliban leadership lived in Pakistan.
In a 2011 report by a Washington, DC-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Amer Latif, former director for South Asian affairs in the US Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, noted that Karzai was walking a “fine line between criticising Pakistan’s activities while also referring to Pakistan as Afghanistan’s ‘twin brother’.”
“It is in this context that Karzai appears to be looking to solidify long-term partnerships with countries that will aid his stabilisation efforts,” he said, referring to Karzai’s visit to India and his efforts to improve relations with the subcontinent.
When Ghani rose to power in September 2014, he tried to reset ties with Pakistan and also visited the country in November that year. But his efforts did not result in improved ties due to border disputes with Pakistan continuing until his administration was overthrown by the Taliban in August 2021.
So why has India maintained ties with Afghanistan under the Taliban?
Initially, when the Taliban returned to power in 2021 following the withdrawal of the US, political analysts largely expected Pakistan to lead the way in recognising the Taliban administration as the official government of Afghanistan, improving bilateral relations which had turned icy under Karzai and Ghani.
But relations turned hostile, with Pakistan repeatedly accusing the Taliban of allowing anti-Pakistan armed groups like the Pakistan Taliban (TTP) to operate from Afghan soil. The Taliban denies this.
Then, the deportation of tens of thousands of Afghan refugees by Pakistan in recent years further strained ties between the two neighbours.
India has ultimately taken a pragmatic approach to the Taliban in order to maintain the good relations it built with Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021, and has somewhat leveraged poor relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan to cement these.
“With Pakistan’s increasingly strained relations with Afghanistan, the logic of ‘enemy’s enemy’ is acting as a glue between Kabul and New Delhi,” International Crisis Group’s Donthi said.
He added that despite the fact that India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government opposes Islamist organisations, “the strategic necessity to counter Pakistan has led it to engage with the Taliban proactively”.
India and Pakistan are nuclear-armed rivals which engaged in a four-day conflict in May 2025 after armed rebels killed Indian tourists in Pahalgam, a popular tourist spot in Indian-administered Kashmir, last April. New Delhi accused Pakistan of supporting rebel fighters, a charge Pakistan strongly denied.
For its part, Afghanistan took the opportunity to strongly condemn the Pahalgam attack and the Indian Ministry of External Affairs expressed “deep appreciation” to the Taliban for its “strong condemnation of the terrorist attack in Pahalgam … as well as for the sincere condolences”.
India has also condemned Pakistani military action in Afghanistan and has provided aid to thousands of Afghan refugees displaced from Pakistan.
So what is India’s endgame in Afghanistan?
Sharma, the OP Jindal Global University professor, said India wants to ensure that Pakistan and China, whose influence has grown in South Asia in recent years, “do not have a free run”, as “there is a divergence of interest on Afghanistan” with both Pakistan and its ally, China.
“There are security interests New Delhi is keen to further and protect for which engagement [with the Taliban] is the only option,” he added.
Anil Trigunayat, a former Indian diplomat, noted that while Afghanistan and Pakistan relations have their own dynamic, currently the Taliban leadership, even if not a monolith, refuses to play to the tunes of the Pakistan military and its intelligence agency.
“Hence they [Pakistan] accuse Indian complicity in Taliban actions in Pakistan,” he said.
But the Taliban, he said, “understands and appreciates India’s intent, policies and [humanitarian] contributions”, making its leaders keen to continue collaboration with New Delhi.
And just like that, Netflix has bowed out of its pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming and studio assets.
Late Thursday, the streaming colossus announced that it has decided against raising its $82.7 billion bid for a big chunk of the WBD properties, leaving Paramount Skydance with what amounts to the winning offer. Under Paramount’s latest revision to its original proposal, David Ellison’s media conglomerate will fork over some $111 billion for everything under the WBD tent, including the sports-heavy cable networks division.
Among the backers of Paramount’s $31 per share, all-cash bid are Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi and Apollo, which are providing a $57.5 billion debt commitment, and Ellison’s father/Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who has guaranteed a $45.7 billion equity commitment.
In a statement issued by co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, Netflix noted that Paramount’s latest escalation made any further attempt to claim the WBD assets a bad bit of business. “The transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval,” Sarandos and Peters wrote. “However, we’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid.”
Netflix went on to thank the WBD brass for “running a fair and rigorous process” before going on to characterize the assets as “a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.”
Meanwhile, as part of its sweetened offer, Paramount will foot the bill for the $2.8 billion termination fee WBD now owes Netflix.
Netflix’s announcement arrived just hours after Sarandos met with White House staffers to discuss his company’s bid for the WBD assets. President Donald Trump was not on hand for the meeting.
Paramount’s updated offer all but guarantees that it will walk away with the WBD spoils. While shareholders must vote to approve the deal, the amount of cash in play and the absence of a viable alternative suggest that the transaction will get the green flag.
Upon closing, the Paramount deal will bring CBS Sports and Turner Sports under one roof, thereby creating a massive rights portfolio that includes the NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball, college football, the Masters, the UFC and March Madness.
Uniting the rights to the marquee men’s college hoops tourney would effectively close the circle on the partnership forged in 2010 by former CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus and ex-Turner Sports president David Levy. After McManus determined that CBS could no longer afford to go it alone with its coverage of March Madness, the two execs hashed out a 14-year, $10.8 billion rights deal that would see the Turner networks share the burden—and the spoils—with CBS.
Ten years ago, the two partners extended the deal through 2032, tacking on another eight years of Madness for an additional $8.8 billion.
Having been subjected to a Beltway cross-examination and at least one disapproving social media salvo by the president, Netflix may have come to the conclusion that the regulatory fix was in. Earlier this month, Sarandos was grilled by a Senate committee in an antitrust hearing that often teetered on the edge of the profoundly unserious. In one heated exchange, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked why “so much of Netflix content for children promotes a transgender ideology?”
Hawley began his line of questioning by inquiring into relevant matters (labor concerns, theatrical windows), before veering into the culture war lane near the end of his allotted time. He concluded by expressing his concern that Sarandos and Netflix “don’t share my values or those of many other American parents,” a vibes-based assessment which the framers of the Sherman Act neglected to consider 136 years ago when they were going about the business of outlawing monopolistic practices.
Later in the hearing, Eric Schmitt, the junior senator from the Show Me State, told Sarandos that Netflix was responsible for creating the “wokest content in the history of the world.” Again, this was an antitrust hearing, not a meeting of a network standards and practices division.
Ellison turned down an invitation to testify at the hearing.
Netflix’s decision to bow out of the running was made shortly after the WBD board determined that Paramount’s latest bid was the “superior” offer. Paramount’s strategy to usurp Netflix as the front runner was reinforced by an aggressive campaign to assure WBD shareholders that it has a far better shot at successfully negotiating any potential regulatory hurdles.
Misgivings about Netflix’s chances were further amplified last weekend when President Donald Trump made a dig at a Netflix board member.
Trump on Saturday took to Truth Social to demand that Netflix bounce Susan Rice from its board of directors “IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences.” A former Obama and Biden administration official, Rice poked the bear during a podcast appearance in which she insinuated that “it is not going to end well” for corporations and news organizations that “bent the knee” to Trump.
When asked by the BBC about Trump’s anti-Rice salvo, Sarandos tried to shrug the whole thing off, saying of the president, “He likes to do a lot of things on social media.” Sarandos went on to assert that the executive branch has no say in the matter, and while that may be accurate from a legal standpoint, the Netflix co-CEO may want to take a gander at the big pile of nothing that used to be the East Wing of the White House. Stranger things (sorry) have happened.
“This is a business deal. It’s not a political deal,” Sarandos said. “This deal is run by the Department of Justice in the U.S. and regulators throughout Europe and around the world.”
The day after Sarandos brushed off Trump’s remarks, Paramount upped its offer to WBD to $31 a share, to be paid in all cash. This marked the 10th revision of Paramount’s original bid and included billions in additional financial incentives. Just hours after WBD acknowledged receipt of the beefed-up proposal, Ellison, the chairman and CEO of Paramount, attended the State of the Union Address as a guest of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
The Justice Department, which just two weeks ago dismissed Gail Slater, the head of its antitrust division, is said to be looking into Paramount’s proposal. Under federal law, antitrust enforcers are at liberty to scuttle any deal that poses a threat to fair and competitive business practices.
On Wednesday, House Democrats petitioned U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to provide a full accounting of why the DOJ ousted Slater, noting that her ejection has left a “leadership vacuum” at a time when “the antitrust division is handling historic cases.” Signed by Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, and Jerry Nadler, a Democratic congressman from New York, the letter stated that Slater’s departure leaves the DOJ bereft of “any principled antitrust experts left to guard the antitrust division from [a] cascade of corruption.”
Hand-picked by Trump to lead the antitrust division, Slater was confirmed by the Senate last March by a 78-19 vote.
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An Egyptian tour guide was arrested after allegedly sketching a stick figure onto the side of the 4,000-year-old Pyramid of Unas while leading a group of tourists.
Video of the incident, which circulated widely on social media, shows the man leaning toward a lower section of the pyramid’s outer casing while tourists stand nearby listening. He is then seen attempting to wipe the markings away with his hand, though remnants remain visible in the footage.
In a post on X, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said the guide “damaged an antiquity by drawing on the outer casing of one of the pyramids” while explaining the site to tourists. Although the initial report mentioned the general Giza area.
The ministry said the investigation was launched after the video spread online, prompting an antiquities inspector to file a report with the Saqqara Tourism Police Station identifying the guide. Officials said the markings were later removed by specialists.
An Egyptian tour guide was arrested after allegedly sketching a stick figure on the 4,000-year-old Pyramid of Unas in Saqqara, officials said. (Egyptian Ministry of Interior)
Authorities apprehended the suspect, who confessed to the act during questioning, according to the ministry.
“Legal measures have been taken,” the ministry added, noting that specialists have since removed the markings.
Local media outlets, citing the Interior Ministry’s investigation, identified the site as the Pyramid of Unas in the Saqqara necropolis south of Giza.
VANDALS HIT YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK WITH GRAFFITI ON BOULDER, MORE
An Egyptian tour guide was arrested after allegedly sketching a stick figure on the 4,000-year-old Pyramid of Unas in Saqqara, officials said. (Egyptian Ministry of Interior)
B.C. for the Pharaoh Unas, is historically significant for containing the earliest Pyramid Texts. These religious inscriptions consist of more than 200 spells carved into the pyramid’s interior walls, forming what scholars consider the oldest known collection of funerary texts.
ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND 1,600-YEAR-OLD CHURCHES AND MURAL OF JESUS IN EGYPTIAN DESERT SETTLEMENT
An Egyptian tour guide was arrested after allegedly sketching a stick figure on the 4,000-year-old Pyramid of Unas in Saqqara, officials said. (Egyptian Ministry of Interior)
The pyramid is located within the vast Saqqara necropolis, part of ancient Memphis – Egypt’s first capital and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site that contains a sprawling complex of tombs, temples and pyramids.
Egypt has increased enforcement and preservation efforts at archaeological sites in recent years as officials seek to protect ancient monuments that attract millions of visitors annually.
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Under Egypt’s Antiquities Protection Law, damaging actions such as writing on or damaging archaeological sites can carry prison sentences and fines, with the exact penalties varying by offense.
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