Thieves steal 145 Islamic relics from Cairo University

Thieves got away with 145 Islamic artefacts from the American University in Cairo over a two-day period in March, Egypt's minister for antiquities said on Tuesday. The relics, along with 50 replicas, were stolen from a storage house belonging to the university, Zahi Hawass said in a statement.
"The thefts occurred between March 15 and March 17. One hundred and forty five relics were found to be missing, along with fifty replicas," the statement said. A university spokeswoman, Rehab Saed, put the number of stolen relics at "140, out of around 1,000".
"There are two investigations ongoing, one by the university itself and one by the authorities," she told AFP. A university expedition had discovered the relics in Fustat, a Cairo district which served as an early Muslim capital of Egypt, in the mid-20th century. Hawass's statement said the university's collection had been targeted by thieves before, in 1989.