Timbuktu's ancient manuscripts returned after 13 years

The Malian military government on Monday started returning home the historic manuscripts of Timbuktu that were spirited out of their fabled northern city when it was occupied by Al Qaeda-linked militants more than a decade ago.

- By Baba AHMED

MALIAN officials transport manuscripts that were spirited out of Timbuktu when militants occupied the city

Islamist radicals destroyed more than 4,000 manuscripts, some dating to the 13th century, after they seized Timbuktu in 2012, according to the findings of a United Nations expert mission. They also destroyed nine mausoleums and a mosque’s door — all but one of the buildings on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

The majority of the documents dating to the 13th century — more than 27,000 — were saved by the devotion of the Timbuktu library's Malian custodians, who carried them out of the occupied city in rice sacks, on donkey carts, by motorcycle, by boat and four-wheel-drive vehicles.